


A Toast to the Future

by juliettdelta



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Everyone lives, F/M, angry children finding each other, in the new world of the saved citadel, unless they are directly related the Immortan because well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-22 17:32:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 54,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4844234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliettdelta/pseuds/juliettdelta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toast is looking for a sense of purpose in the Newly Risen Again Citadel, and well, she might not find that, but at least she can find comfort in Unexpected Places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Sun

The sun beats down on the roof of the Citadel, searing and merciless. Toast squints at the sky, hoping for clouds somewhere in the distance, but there are none in sight, the blue interrupted only by sand and rocks and a lone vulture in the faint distance. Sweat drips down her nose.

She wanders back towards the green, away from the steep edge. There's some precautions, now. A flimsy fence. Dag had insisted on it when she started recruiting more of the younger pups to help with the gardening, to help keep the green alive and awake. Still, they'd lost one. Even the younger ones have had their survival instincts stripped from them, and getting them to learn otherwise will be difficult. There's always a warboy as well, up there, when the pups are helping. They change it round, it's rarely the same one two days in a row. The warboy is supposed to keep the pups safe, to make sure no one goes to near the edge or anything. 

Today's warboy is lounging on a rocky outcropping, basking in the sun, eyes closed against the glare. He doesn't seem to be a very effective guard, Toast thinks, but she finds herself keeping an eye on him. Peaceful looking warboys are a novelty. He moves, throws an arm over his eyes to further block the light and she sees there's something glinty bright in his face. Perhaps it's some sort of ornament. Who knows what's in fashion with warboys.

It's been, she thinks, about thirty days since their return to the Citadel. Perhaps a few more or less. She should be keeping track, she thinks. But she hasn't and won't. Someone else will, probably. Will chronicle the Fall and Rise of the Citadel. Scrawled between the lines, perhaps, of one of their wordburgers. The tale of the Immortan's fall, to be told and retold to the pups to come, to the children of the wretched. No. The children of the people, now. 

Toast uses part of thin fabric wound round her head and neck to protect her from the sun to wiped the sweat of her face. It's nearing midday and the sun is at its worst. She should go back down. Or join Dag where she's sat in the shadow of the trees, surrounded by small pups. They worship her. Of course they do. Showing them how to make more green. Dag's explaining something to them, gesticulating, voice occasionally rising enough that Toast can almost make out what she's saying. She's got her role. Green mother, the pups sometimes call her. She dislikes that, Toast knows. Isn't ecstatic with the connotation of motherhood. But explaining that to the pups has proven difficult.

Toast tugs at her white shirt, peeling it away from her skin. It's soaked with sweat, everything is. Her cargos, too. Useful for working in the sun, the warboys claimed. But it was different, wasn't it, hanging off a car with the wind. Different when you had to cover up with a shirt as well. Or felt you had to. Whichever. The warboys certainly don't bother with that. She watches the guard one get up and saunter over to where the pups are, Dag looking up and saying something, but the wind eats up their words before they can reach Toast. She catches herself following the warboys movements, languid quick and strangely graceful, then shakes her head no. She's got more important duties.

Going down into the Citadel proper is cold, at first, clammy clothes helping not at all. Warpups on various errands rush past her in every direction, throwing her a quick V8 salute if they've both hands free. They'd tried to discourage that, it being part of the old regime. But in the end they decided that ridding the pups and boys of the worship of Joe was more important. That if they wanted to worship the engine then that was fine, for the time being. Toast doesn't want to admit it, not even to herself, but she quite likes their reverence. Wants it changed, gradually, though, into something more respect than worship, but it keeps the pups listening to them.

The small ones are having an easier time accepting the change in management so far. They accepted and loved and worshipped Joe, but now they've redirected that reverent energy to the sisters. Which is definitely a step in the right direction, something to be thankful for. They adore Dag for her knowledge and understanding of the plants. Love Capable for taking care of them, trying to teach them. And Cheedo as well, for her attempting to take care of them, for trying to learn how to be a better organic mechanic. They don't quite know how to feel about Toast yet. Toast doesn't quite know how to feel about Toast yet, if she's being honest with herself. Her purpose in the Citadel isn't as obvious and easily defined as that of her sisters. She's not sure how to relate to the pups and warboys. 

Furiosa advised that they try not to change too much at once, and they listen. Know that she is more part of the Citadel than they ever will be. That she knows how much the warboys can take better than they. But it will improve. They will have more people to ask soon.

A salvage crew was sent out the day after they took back the Citadel, when the merest hint of order had been restored, when Furiosa had, through means that the sisters were not entirely comfortable with, had established herself as the one in charge. It hadn't been violent, not directly. Furiosa was too weakened for that. But she was an Imperator. She had rank and importance and understood the warboy hierarchy. The sisters had chosen to be on the roof while that was going on. To rest amidst the green and each other, relaxing for the first time in days.

The result was, either way, that a lot of wounded warboys had been brought back. A lot of half broken wrecks. Many of them had been burnt badly, both by the sun and various explosions. some of them would never be the same again. But then no one really would now.

Capable had found her Nux again, among the most heavily wounded. He hadn't been conscious. She hadn't left his side for the first week. Toast had worried about her, then. Told Capable that it was an odd relationship where she had spent more time watching his lifeless body and cradling his limp hand in hers than she had known him awake. Capable had looked coldly at her and Toast had backed off, hands up. It would be good, she thought, to have someone to speak for them to the other warboys. Someone who could make them listen.


	2. Settling

The thing, Slit finds, about surviving, about being denied entrance into Valhalla, is that it's quite lonely. Mostly that's because his partner, his driver, his best mate's decided to go be a filthy traitor. Gone off to live at the top of the Citadel. In the dome, celebrated by the shinies. Fucking Nux.

Slit had a hard time believing, at first, that Nux would betray them all. That he'd turn his back on everything, on the warboys, on Slit, on the fucking Immortan. Nux was the most devoted of them all, so enthusiastic in his worship, sometimes a bit too much, but apparently that didn't mean shit when there was a chrome shiny making eyes at him. 

So he'd been lifted up in this new hierarchy of treachery of the Immortan, was what Slit figured. Raised among heretics. Slit had been furious for the first couple of days. Lying on a cot in the bloodshed it was easy. Letting the pain fuel him. Really trying to pay attention to the dozens of wounds he had, where burning shrapnel had shredded and melted his skin. But that got old quick.

What he's doing now is he's playing along nice. Got to get in good with the new bosses, he figures, for now. Ideally, he'd like to see that filthy imperator topple from her throne, but that's not gonna happen yet. Not while she's so well protected. Not while so many of the ones who were most loyal were killed.

“You what?” the pale one says when he approaches her.

“Wanna help. Ain't that what ya want? Us to be all good an' nice?” 

The Dag, as he gathers she's called, watches him, quiet for a moment, full of distrust. He has to respect her for that. Even if it's slightly inconvenient. Watches her huge eyes narrow as distracted fingers twine windblown white hair into knots and tangles and rope. Her fingers are so thin, like nails, but brittle, he imagines. 

“Allright, lizard boy,” she says, at last, and he can't quite keep the genuine surprise off his face, “you can help.”

“Yeah?” asks before he can stop himself, and she nods.

She has piercing eyes that see right through him, even if they're squinty with sun and tired from working the earth. Somehow this makes her more rather than less shiny. He ponders this as he's put to work doing something to the dirt he doesn't quite understand. Moving some bits to other places so stuff can go in. Green is complicated, it seems. 

He gets guard duty up on the roof once every ten days. It's shit work, but good relaxation. Just watching, making sure no one falls off the top. And Slit is vigilant. However easy the wives or ex-wives or whatever they are now, the shinies, are making the pups believe their lies, Slit would never hurt them, wouldn't ever let them hurt themselves when it's not needed. Because pups are precious. Pups are the next warboys, and those are in short supply. Especially lately. So Slit's careful with them. He always was, but if he's gotta get more people on his side he's got to make the little fuckers like him too. And keeping them safe's a decent start to that.

But it's not like he can't take the opportunity to relax. It's just sitting there with your eyes open making sure the pups are a long enough distance from the edge. The first day he's on duty only one ever gets close to any danger, and Slit's up, got the tiny, tiny pup by the hem of his cargoes, carrying him to the little shack up there before he can harm himself. Most of the time he spends enjoying the sun. It's quite pleasant, he finds, when you don't have to move. And when you've got your paint on proper. 

“Why don't ya paint your eyes, it'd hurt less,” he finds himself suggesting.

Dag spits at the ground and curses, loud and obscene. It's odd coming from a shiny. Doesn't fit her frighteningly chrome face. But it's as rude as any warboy gets, and again he feels this odd sort of respect. He grimaces and forces it from his mind. 

“It's his,” she explains. “His markings for his slaves.”

“Weren't-” Slit starts to protest but Dag shushes him and he quiets down.

“Doesn't matter. Out of the question, my eyes will still see without his filthy maskings.”

Slit frowns at her, but she seems lost in her own thoughts, so he just picks up his canteen and drinks the last of his work ration of aqua cola. Those have gone up under the new management, and he's gotta admit that's not so bad of them. It'll get them all addicted, he's sure, but long as the aqua cola keeps coming who cares. Heresy as the thought is, maybe some of the Immortan's policies can stand being improved upon. Not having a permanently dry and scratchy throat is an improvement. As is this new and more relaxed duty.

He wanders back to his favourite comfortable rock, where he can lie back and enjoy the warmth, watching the pups with a close eye. Puts his hands behind his head and shifts so the tools in his various pockets don't indirectly touch his skin. They get pretty fucking hot in the sun. He's burned himself on that, quite literally.

There's movement, he notices, somewhere across the dark and empty fields. He looks over, careful not to move too much. He doubts there are buzzards here, but you never know where a threat might be. But it's nothing. Nothing dangerous, anyway. The tiniest of the shinies. He doesn't remember her name, but he'd recognize any of the shinies across far greater distances. She's taken to wearing the same cargoes as the warboys. Sensible, he thinks. It's a bit far to tell, but he suspect she wears them better than the majority of the warboys. But that's not too hard.

There's a gust of wind, and it catches the end of the long white cloth she's got to protect her from the sun. He can't keep his face from twitching into an amused grin as she tries to wrangle it into obedience, seemingly unaware she's being observed. Slit throws a quick look back at the pups, but they're all carefully lifting tiny anti-bullets, stuffing them into holes in the ground. He wonders what they think will happen.

Dag's been telling them silly stories, he thinks, about the powers of green. That it isn't just good for giving the mushy mess they eat a hint of colour and taste, that it has some higher meaning. It's part, he suspects, of trying to get them to forget the Immortan. Part of making them forget what they are. They need to be put back on the right track, he thinks. Need someone to teach them. He wonders whether it's the shinies deciding everything now. Even who's training the pups.

Slit glances back over at the tiny shiny, but she's gone. Strange. Come up just to look. Maybe she's spying for Furiosa. Making sure they're all being good obedient little warboys, following these shit commands from people who've got no clue what they're talking about. Well, she's not getting any dirt on him, not today.

-

Everyone's on rebuild duty now, whenever they've any time between other things. There's so much got damaged in the Fall. It's all got to be fixed up, made to work and run smooth again. Dents that need to be righted, lots and lots of parts need replacing. The repair bay is always humming with activity. They even took some of the Immortan's precious trapped lightning, bright power, put in proper lights there and not just torches, so the work could keep going all night too.

Nux is in charge of the Rebuilding. Course he fucking is. Which makes Slit's duties complicated. Because while Nux is a filthy traitor who helped kill the Immortan, he's also a hell of a black thumb. The best, in fact. He knows these machines better, probably, than the shits who built them back in the old times. And he is unfortunately also the only one who's ever been patient enough to explain all this to Slit. 

Slit's not a natural mechanic. He knows this, and it makes him want to kill things. Hence his great success as a lancer. Which is fair enough. He's been partnered with Nux for as long as either can remember. A lot of their training happened together. A lot of the basic stuff, anyway, before either got too specialized. It was a surprise to no one that they'd end up a lancer and driver team. It was equally expected who would take which role. But it meant that a lot of Slit's understanding of engines involved terms he'd never heard anyone use, Nux's weird and rambling explanations that Slit shortened into commands in his own head.

The problem, essentially, is that Slit's not sure he can ask anyone else for help ion any meaningful way, when there's mechanical stuff he just doesn't get, that's just too complicated for him. Which is why he's now staring, almost helplessly, at half a bike. 

“Need anythin'?” the traitor asks as he wanders over like it's nothing like he's not the one broke their world.

Slit's face is, as is often the case, a mask of anger, but Nux knows him too well. Sees right through his moods in the way you only can when you've spent years and years doing mostly everything together.

“Fuck off, traitor filth,” Slit greets him, not bothering to look.

It's got to be an offence, now, probably a punishable one, to talk to Nux the Hero that way. No one else dares to, he knows that much. Worried looks cast his way when he does. But Nux doesn't care. Is used to the abuse. Slit was never a nice partner.

“Bike got ya confused?” Nux asks, and the fucking kindness in his voice makes Slit want to vomit.

Because the wives have screwed him up. Fucked up his little head, because he keeps wanting Slit to forgive him. Doesn't get why can't. Someone must've ratted on Slit. Told Nux how he'd come to check on Nux's half breathing corpse as he lay sleeping, healing. Must've made up malicious lies about Slit being worried instead of just checking to see that the fucking traitor piece of shit was in sufficient pain.

Nux hobbles into view. He's leaning heavily on a stick, moving slow. Still weak enough that Slit can't fight him fair. Which he will, when the fucker gets better. He will beat him right back into the sickbed if it's the last thing he does, because-

“Fix it yourself if ya care so fucking much,” Slit mutters under his breath, not looking into big blue eyes and seeing that- that fucking humiliating disappointment there.

He walks out, slow, like he's not bothered, but fast enough that Nux couldn't keep up if he tried. He doesn't try. Slit can feel his gaze on the back of his neck and it burns worse than the branding iron did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day Toast and Slit will actually interact with each other. But it is not this day.  
> I'll be homeless no longer from tomorrow afternoon, so I should have more time&energy to write, both this and Black Like Motor Oil, after that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Almost a hint of interaction !!

The dome is full of light and sound. It's even crowded. They've opened some of the windows to let the air in. Well, smashed some of the facets of the glass dome, to be more precise. But the air smells healthier now. Still, rays of sunlight reveal swirling dust and sand, air thick with matter. A group of small pups are sitting in a ring on the floor. In theory they're supposed to be listening to Capable talk, but it's their first time in the dome, their first lesson, so they're distracted by the shiny glass, stacks of books and most of all the small pool of water. Capable catches Toasts eye and rolls hers as a pup, little more than 1100 days, tumbles into the pool, splashing water everywhere. 

The pups eyes, all of them, turn instantly to Capable, wide and scared. They've wasted water, precious water. Capable talks to them, soothing words, assuring them that no harm is done. Yes it's wise not to throw away what water they have, but it'll be fine, there's enough now. The sisters will not withhold it like Joe did.

They try to de-deify the Immortan. Refuse to call him anything more respectful than Joe when they talk about him, and some of the younger pups are beginning to pick it up. The older ones discourage it, though, well trained in the Old Ways as they are. It's a process. 

Nux sneaks in just before Capable finishes talking to the pups. He's not exactly silent, but the pups aren't very attentive. His stick that he still, much to his annoyance, has to use clicks on the floor. He and Capable exchange meaningful glances, and Capable starts to wrap up his story. Nux limps over to where Toast is sitting, across the room.

“Real shine with the pups, ain't she?” he asks, grinning at Toast, though his eyes still dart towards Capable.

“Mhm,” Toast agrees. “They seem to be getting better. Easy with the small ones. Still almost innocent.”

When she looks over at Nux his eyes are narrowed. He studies the floor with avoidant intensity. His long fingers twist his stick can thing, scratching the surface of it. She's not sure what that's about. Inches a little away from him while he's distracted. She's not entirely comfortable yet with his familiarity. Knows the concept of personal space is foreign to warboys, but Capable's tried to make him think about it. Nux has stopped looking like a kicked puppy when the sisters move away, at least. 

“They'll see,” Nux says, almost to himself. “Eventually.”

“Long as eventually happens before someone decides to try and take over,” Toast says.

Nux studies her, tries to make out if she's just insulted him or them or just stated a fact.

“They won't,” he says with confidence. “Won't let 'em. Tell 'em it'll make things bad again if they try.”

“They listen to you?”

He nods, but she can see he's not as sure of that as he wants to be. He's trying though, really hard, she can tell. Capable couldn't have chosen a better warboy, not really. Even if his constant presence still unnerves Toast, just a tiny bit. She'll never tell him or Capable, of course. Their sickening sweet in loveness is the kind of thing the Citadel needs right now. Pups especially, need to see that someone can be chrome and tough and still like soft, nice things.

-

It's 40 days after the Fall that Toast gets her first order. She knows it's an order because when she says that no, absolutely not, she is informed that she hasn't got much choice. It's easy to forget where Furiosa comes from, that she's been part of the Citadel for thousands of days when she's laughing with the Vuvalini, putting a kind hand on the shoulders of the sisters in comfort.

Furiosa must see something in Toast's eyes, some shock reflected on her face, because she tries to look kind.

“You have to,” she says again.

“Why?” Toast demands. “Why me?”

“You're from there, aren't you?”

Toast looks down at the cracked stone. A tiny bug crawls by her foot. 

“Doesn't mean I want to go back,” she mutters, eyes still on the bug.

“Well, you'll get to go home, at any rate,” Furiosa says, and apparently that's it, it's final, because she walks away.

Toast sighs, slumps down on the floor, back against the rock wall. She hugs her knees to her. Home. Gas Town wasn't exactly the kind of home you longed for. Air thick with fumes, always. The great moat of death with the half skeletons of forgotten structures sticking out like claws. The filthy shanty town with the shack where she spent the first fifteen years of her life. 

The idea, according to Furiosa, was that it would be easier for her than any of the other girls to deal with the people who were running Gas Town now. Which might be true. Toast wouldn't wish for any of the others to have to go in her stead. But that doesn't make it any more tempting. She sighs, leans her head back against the wall. It's sharp and uncomfortable, but she doesn't feel like moving, not quite yet. She closes her eyes and does her best to not remember what it was like. What happened back then.

“Miss Toast!”

She's not sure how long she's sat there, but it must have been a while, because the shadows cast by the window -little more, really, than a crack in the outer walls, letting in thin and filtered light- have moved. 

“Miss Toast!” the voice sounds again, followed by panting and the soft patter of running feet.

The pup rounds the corner and skids to a halt. Toast winces on behalf of the pup's feet, which are bare on the rock. 

“Hi there,” she says, and tries to make her voice kind and patient for the little one like her sisters seem to manage effortlessly.

The pup seems to wait for permission to speak.

“What is it?”

“Ya has to come down t'the repair bay,” the pup tells her, to shy to look her in the eye.

“Who says?”

“Th' Imperator,” the pup says, and that could mean at least ten different people, so Toast pats the tiny one's smooth head thanks them and drags herself from the floor.

-

There's things to go through, she learns, before one can go on a trade run. A lot of things. There's been communication between the new lords of Gas Town and the Citadel, but no actual trade yet. And the Citadel needs guzzoline. Needs it bad, because the Fall had taken a lot of resources. And that last run to Gas Town, of course, never went quite as planned.

The heat in the repair bay is stifling. Welding sparks fly everywhere and the air is static and feels unhealthy. Toast is leaning on the hood of a car, and from the worried glances she sees some warboys throw her way she suspects that she's not supposed to. Well. At least they're too scared to mention anything. That's reassuring.

Ace is talking. He was one of the many who got picked up, who survived with nothing but a concussion and a pair of broken arms. He seems to be healing well, although not enough to be coming on the run. He's explaining how things will happen, who will do what. A lot of it is probably routine, and she suspects much of it is for her benefit. But that doesn't make it less dry and technical.

Furiosa was down there when Toast came, but she left after a muttered conversation with Ace. He seems to be one of her most trusted second in commands. More than Nux. And Toast can kind of see why. There's something almost comforting about Ace. His lined face and the multitude of lumps that clearly haven't gotten anywhere close to killing him yet. Maybe it's a quality of older people, Toast muses. She has only ever known three. And one of them was the monster kept her locked up, so she's not sure. It might just be him. Whatever it is, it makes being down here among all the warboys a bit less intimidating.

Toast maintains a half scowl, just to make sure no one thinks she's nervous. Anger is a lot more comforting than fear, and a better defence, too. She glares around, occasionally, and the gaze of most warboys falter under hers. But there's one exception. One who glares back. It looks like he's mocking her, but that might just be the permanent grin carved into his face. It's grotesque, off putting. The whole warboy seems to be held together primarily with staples. Lucky Cheedo and some healers from the People are taking over.

She catches Ace mentioning her name, and she looks up, dutifully, scowl melting away. She feels a twinge of guilt at not paying attention, like when Miss Giddy would chastise her for not following her clearly messily put together lecture of the political landscape before the Fall of Civilization. She folds her hands in her lap and listens closely for the rest of the briefing.

After, as she's walking up to the dome again, she catches the warboy from before leering at her, openly and unashamed. She glares at him sharply, but he just pulls his face into an impossibly wide smile, unsettling, like that of a reptile. Like the crocodiles in the wordburgers. Toast suppresses a shudder and hurries up.

-

“I'm worried,” she admits.

She sits on the edge of one of the towers with Dag. They've got blankets around them, small cups of some leafy water Dag says is good for them. It tastes bitter, but Toast drinks it without complaint. Refusing any form of water still isn't something you do, not even the sisters, not even in secret.

“What about?” Dag asks.

The steam rising from her cup drifts around her face like mist. In the dark of night she's as pale as ever, though the sun has reddened if not darkened her skin from work in the gardens. 

“Going back,” Toast replies. “Furiosa called it my home but it- it never was. It can't be again.”

She blows steam from her cup. It's not a cup, in fact, so much as a hollow metal container. She worries about what's been in it, but it warms her almost numb fingers, so it's not all bad. Dag leans closer to her, and Toast puts an arm around her. Leans against Dag's shoulder as they look out at the dark desert. Tiny stars twinkle far away.

“I'm scared nothing's changed,” she says. “That there's someone just like the People Eater in control there now. Scared, to be honest, that the warboys won't strike a deal, hand me over to whoever's in charge.”

She hasn't admitted to herself before just now that this is what she's afraid of. That she'll arrive back and the same thing will happen as when she left. That she'll be a thing again, owned. Dag pulls her into a one armed hug, whispers soothing words into her windswept hair. 

“Shh, my sweet, they won't. Furiosa won't let them.”

“She won't be there. Ace won't either. Or Nux, desperate as he is to drive the rig. No one we know. No one we know we can trust.”

Dag hums, thoughtfully, some melody that sounds almost familiar, but Toast can't think where she would have heard proper music that's not that awful wailing guitar. None of them can play the piano in the dome.

“Furiosa will understand. She'll send what remains of her old crew. Someone she trusts.”

“Or she'll think I'm weak.”

Dag shakes her head, and a stray braid almost pokes Toast's eye out, weighed as it is with decorative pebbles. 

“She was taken as a child, she will understand. She'll not think less of you,” Dag soothes.

Toast sighs, takes a sip of leaf water. She's got no choice but to trust Furiosa's judgement on that. And if she thinks Toast will be fine, then, well, perhaps she will be. She looks at the stars and tries to determine whether they look promising or ominous. They sparkle unhelpfully in the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guize I am sorry this took longer than planned. Will attempt to update BLMOSLY (A terribly acronym) 2morow.


	4. Take Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last... actual interaction

Toast wakes an hour early, and her stomach is a cold heavy rock. Today is not a good day. Faint light makes its way in through the half open door. Which means someone else is up. They're leaving before dawn. Which is fine by Toast. She likes mornings. Liked being able to sit in the dome and watch light and colour creep into the sky. One of the very few perks. 

She stretches, winces when her toes hit the cold stone. Hurriedly dresses and walks out into the main room, rubbing warmth into her arms. Makes her steps soft so the boots she's still not accustomed to wearing don't make too much noise. 

Capable's sitting cross-legged on the floor, looking out at the sky, back to Toast. Toast walks over, stopping briefly to splash water from the small pool on her face. It's icy, and if she wasn't wide awake before she is now. She sits down next to Capable.

“Morning,” she says softly.

Capable gives a small smile.

“You doing okay?” she asks and Toast frowns.

“I think I am. Think I will.”

Capable nods.

“Dag told me you were scared.”

Toast makes a mock angry face, but since when has any of the sisters not told each other everything.

“That you were worried about the warboys. Spoke to Nux, asked if he knew anyone good to send with. And talked to Furiosa.”

She pauses, looks to Toast as if to ask whether this was too great an intervention in her affairs, and Toast just nods encouragingly.

“And, well, Nux talked her into letting his old lancer on the team. He's _real shine_ apparently, whatever that means. Told me he told him to look after you specially, make sure you were safe.”

“Thank you,” Toast says, gives her sister's shoulder a grateful squeeze.

“Why aren't you with him, by the way? Now, I mean? Hardly see you two apart any more?”

Capable frowns, looks out at the sky and her hands twitch in her lap.

“He's not here. Disappears some nights and he won't say why or where. I'm not sure what it is. He seems better after, though. I'll let him explain when he's ready.”

“You're too good to him,” Toast says, smiling when Capable looks up in confusion, “that warboy is lucky to have you.”

“Mhmm, I think we're both pretty lucky.”

Toast makes a disgusted face, and Capable laughs. 

-

“ _Him_?” Toast says with a look and tone that betrays more annoyance and disgust than is probably wise in the face of the person who is charged with her protection.

But it's justified, she feels, when that mauled and badly patched up warboy she caught staring at her the other days grins knowingly at her. Furiosa frowns.

“Capable said you would be okay with this? That this would be-”

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” Toast interrupts her, because she doesn't want to cause a bigger scene. 

The other warboys are already looking. They're perched on various parts of the rebuilt war rig,. Well, just the rig, now. They're trying to stop prefacing every other noun with _war_. The warboys, insisting as they are on the name, are mostly working, though some, apparently satisfied their duties are fulfilled, lounge in the sun.

“You'll be driving one of the smaller vehicles,” Furiosa adds, and

“What?” she asks flatly.

“Is that going to be a problem? You've been getting driving lessons, yes?”

She sighs. Nods, eyes narrowed. 

“You'll do fine,” Furiosa says, with a reassuring hand on her arm.

Then she walks off, to discuss something with whoever's in charge. Or whatever warboy is second in command to Toast. At least she will, theoretically, be able to tell them that no, turn this convoy around, we're going back. But she's not going to, however tempting it is. She's not going to let these warboys think she's weak. Not going to give them any reason not to respect and possibly fear her. She'll just have to deal with the driving.

It's not that she can't drive. She can. But she's hardly an expert. Especially not if the warboy watching her back is used to driving with Nux, who is one of the best. Maybe _the_ best. She looks up at his smug face, and she can tell he's thinking the same. He's not saying anything, though. Respectful enough for that. Won't start openly insulting her here, not without being spoken to first. Toast is grateful to have some power, at least.

“What's your name?” she asks, defeated.

“Slit,” he tells her and she raises her eyebrows.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing, nothing,” she tells him, waving the question away, “so what, exactly, is it you've been told to do?”

He pulls himself up to emphasize his height and it's ridiculous. She knows she's not exactly tall, but this one is the same height as Nux, only a lot broader. He towers over her, and it makes her pretty uncomfortable. This appears to have been his goal, judging by his smirk.

“Nux an' th' Imperator told me to keep close, stay on your car. Make sure no buzzards or anythin' can get to ya. Send thundersticks into anyone tries.”

Which isn't, she supposes, directly bad. If he intimidates her this much, he must have the same effect on potential enemies, right? She hopes so.

“Okay warboy. Know which car I'll be driving?”

He nods, and walks off, so she follows. It's small, just enough room for a lancer on the back. But she sees, pleased, that it matches the kind she'd practised driving in. She reminds herself to thank Furiosa for that, at some point. It's even got more than one seat, which is unusual. She wonders if Slit will want it. What she's supposed to say to that. There are some canteens of water, blankets, and a small emergency med kit stuffed wherever there's space. A couple of guns, too. She's grateful for that. 

“Ain't as shine as Razor Cola, but she'll do,” Slit says. 

He's eyeing the thundersticks on the back dubiously. 

“Razor Cola?” Toast asks before she can stop herself.

“Yeah. She was real fuckin' chrome,” he tells her, faraway look in his eyes.

“Almost rode her to Valhalla.”

“Pity about the almost,” she mutters, and she thinks it's low enough he won't hear, not with that lump thing messing up his ear, but he nods, almost sadly.

“Yeah.”

It's almost comical, but not quite. She resolves to ignore that, whatever it is. Suspects this Slit guy has been around long enough it'll be hard to change his death wish. Just hopes he won't sacrifice himself with this car and her in it but no. Furiosa's orders have got to still carry some weight, she thinks. 

He's gotten distracted now, she sees, shouting and gesticulating angrily at one of the warboys on the rig. She notices that some of the scars he's covered in seem to be crude drawings. Nothing so intricate or well done as the V8 on Nux's chest. But still, small drawings, almost childish, carved into his stomach. It would be endearing were it not so disturbing. She looks deliberately away before he notices her looking.

She hears the sound of revving engines, some people are staring up. She gets into the driver's seat.

“You coming or are you too busy showing off to do your damn job?” she demands, loudly.

“Comin', boss,” he says, managing to make it sound like an insult.

He climbs up on back of the car, and that answers that question then. Toast grabs the wheel, steels herself for a moment. 

“Ya gonna start this thing or-” Slit taunts, but the engine roaring to life interrupts him with timing so perfect Toast wonders if Dag's prayers go to some real powers after all.

And they're off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is late & short but I have been slowly dying soft, and apparently you can't cure a cold with a kidnapped bloodbag, so I'm suffering in a silence interrupted only by my zombielike groans of pain and coughing fits approximately every five seconds. Will try to write more when less dying.


	5. Drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More interaction wooo

Toast drives badly. Slit doesn't just notice because he's used to Nux driving, she really is quite terrible. But then, as far as he could understand, she had only been practising driving since The Fall, and that was only sixty days ago. If she had driven before that he had no way of knowing, but he was fairly sure the Immortan hadn't risked his treasures hurting themselves by crashing into a rock. Wouldn't make any sense. And where would they have needed to drive, anyway? They had everything they could possibly want.

The car veers back and forth, barely staying on the road. He's glad they're in the back of the convoy so no one can see what a rust driver he's gotten. Well, she's not his driver, not really. Not his Driver, anyway. That'll always be Nux. Still, he's thankful not many of the other warboys have the opportunity to see him barely manage to cling to the car as it jolts from side to side at highly varying speeds, occasionally nearly hitting the vehicle in front of them. What will happen if they encounter any enemies he can only speculate with slight terror.

He'd asked why the shiny had her own car, why she drove and wasn't back in the back seat of the war rig. Surely that would keep her safer? But, it was explained to him, after several moments of chastising for disrespectfully referring to her as an object, the rig would be the more obvious target of an attack. Also something about being her own boss or some other buzzardshit. He hadn't paid very close attention. Right now, he was preparing an explanation to Ace of why this didn't justify needlessly endangering the shiny and him both. Her crashing into a rock and instantly killing the both of them was probably not going to guarantee him a vehicle on the Eternal Highways.

A warboy on the main rig, another lancer, looks at him like it's the most amusing thing he's ever seen. Slit frees a hand long enough to communicate, in that complex sign language that had developed for times when no one can hear anything over the roar of the engines, that the lancer shoulder consider shoving his thundersticks up his ass. The warboy somehow continues looking like smug smeg-head he is. 

They come to a halt after an hour or so. Someone drove over some sharp shrapnel or something, tearing up their tyres. They stop to fix it proper and right away, not being in any immediate danger of attack. 

Slit lays down on the roof of the car, the metal of it searing against his skin. Luckily much of his stomach is scarred up bad enough to be almost numb. He closes his eyes against the sun, relaxing for a moment. It's theoretically possible that he dozes for half a second, because he's startled when the sun roof slides open half under him. He shuffles to the side, so he can just peer bleary eyed down at the shiny.

“How's my driving?” Toast asks.

“Rust.”

He would usually not be so blunt with a superior -unless, of course, that superior was Nux-, but really, she needs to accept that to get better. He watches her face carefully for a reaction. She looks, for a moment, like she's about to get angry, but then sighs.

“I know,” she mutters.

And this surprises him, because she seems like she would be too proud to admit that. And he feels something strange, something he can't quite understand. Almost like he feels bad because she's disappointed in herself? It's confusing, and he means to ignore the feeling, but before he can he accidentally says

“Showin' promise, though. Be decent enough once ya get more practise.”

Her look of confusion probably mirrors his own. She narrows her eyes and half turns away from him.

“Thank you?”

She says it like a question, like she knows he's mocking her, and he should be, but for whatever reason he's not. This is a problem.

“Ya drive like a confused pup,” he says, but his heart's not in it.

She looks at him weird and turns back to look at the rest of the convoy. He looks at her. Closer now. She's pretty fucking chrome up close too. Her skin even looks shiny. And her hair looks terribly soft. Which is bad. It's a terrible thing, softness. He chews on the scar tissue on the inside of his cheek till he can feel the pain.

“Think it'll be long before we're moving?” she asks, still not facing him.

“Nah. Couple minutes more. Never good to stay too long out in the open. Even if it's our territory,” he tells her, squinting against the sun to see how things are going up front.

“Oh.”

She sounds oddly disappointed.

“Somethin' wrong with that? Thought ya wanted this over quick?”

“Yeah, but...”

She trails off into silence. Nux had asked for Slit to personally look after Toast. He'd asked nicely, even. Which made it even easier for Slit to look at him like a the useless piece of rust he was and say no. Nux hadn't pleaded, knowing, of course, that that would just make Slit laugh. He had, though, tried to explain why it was important Slit did this, which was almost as bad. It had taken Imperator Furiosa looking pretty fucking angry to make Slit reluctantly obey. It was that he minded the job, specifically. Not till he experienced her driving, anyway. It should be a good thing, escorting one of the shinies. One of the ones who seemed less useless, even, but Nux asking made everything worse. Nux made most things worse these day.

Nux had told him Toast was from Gas Town. This in itself seemed to be the problem, but Slit couldn't understand why. The shinies complained so fucking much about being chosen to be the Immortan's treasures, and they weren't even happy to go back to wherever it was they came from? That made no sense. But then most things the shinies say make little sense to him. The Gas Town boys were pretty rust compared to the Citadel's warboys, sure. But that in itself wasn't really enough reason not to want to go back, was it?

“Gas Town's a shit place to grow up,” she says.

Slit's not sure whether she's expecting him to have an opinion on that, so he just waits, looking at her. He can't see the mirror from where he's lying, and he almost wants to move. Doesn't, though, because that brings up questions in his head and he's not interested in dealing with that.

“So polluted, the stench of guzzoline everywhere. I was ten before I knew what fresh air smelled like.”

She pauses, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. Her hands are so tiny. 

“The People Eater's lackeys were… They're weren't nice. If you were on the bottom, then- Then your life was made very not nice.”

Slit frowns.

“Then why'd ya mind bein' the Immortan's treasured wife so much? Had everythin' ya needed an' no one to bother ya,” he says, and she whirls around clumsily, as much as the cramped interior of the car allows.

Her eyes are like steel and her face is twisted in a snarl. She has freckles over her nose, he sees.

“We were _things_ , slaves! We weren't wives, we were an old disgusting man's means of grasping at straws. We were taken without our consent!”

Slit looks at her intently. Tries not to get angry when she speaks ill of the Immortan. That, in his experience, only makes the shinies shout at him more. She glares at him a while more then sighs and slumps back into a less uncomfortable position.

“I thought we'd managed to get through to you boys,” she says, “to make you understand. The pups are adapting fine, I don't see why it's such a problem for you.”

“'S not-” he begins.

“Why can't you see what he was?” she demands, looking back at him again.

He can't read her expression. Doesn't know what she wants him to say, but whatever it is he's not going to give her the satisfaction. The shiny'll only get smug.

“I know what he was,” Slit tells her, defiant.

“You really don't,” she says, and she almost looks sad.

“Why should we believe you over him? He's the one will wait for us in Valhalla now, he's-”

“Did you ever actually meet him? In person, up close, did you ever actually speak to him?”

“...No,” he admits.

It's just another thing Nux can hold over him. Having spoken directly to the Immortan, having been blessed and chromed by god himself. And when Nux talks about it now he sounds almost ashamed. Slit doesn't understand, doesn't want to understand.

“Well I did,” she says. “I saw that old schlanger far, far too often and too close. He was a terrifying, vile old monster.”

Slit's face contorts in anger, but he manages to keep his mouth shut. Just slides the sunroof closed. He's not dealing with her any more. 

“Hey! You don't get off that easy, warboy!”

She has defied his cunning strategy and gotten out of the car. When he turns to look at her she's almost at eye level.

“He was cruel to you too, you have to see that, don't you?”

He huffs.

“Few resources. Did what he could for us. Have to make him proud in return.”

“He's dead!”

“And he lives again. Did they not teach ya 'bout Valhalla, shiny?”

She closes her eyes, rubs her forehead.

“You were slaves, same as us! You weren't free, you were abused soldiers in a madman's army.”

He shrugs.

“That doesn't even bother you? I swear… We should have left you all to die in the desert.”

“You should,” he agrees, because finally she's making sense.

“I- What?”

“Ya had to know we weren't gonna be tricked as easy as Nux, yeah? That not all of us'd turn traitor filth first time a shiny as much as looked at us?”

“Don't call us that,” she says, voice level.

“What? Shiny? 'S what you are. Good thing.”

“No, it's really not. We keep telling you that none of us are things. So stop calling us that.”

“An' what, Toast is such a great fuckin' name? Whatsit even mean?”

“Really? You're making fun of my name, _Slit_?”

He frowns at her.

“What's wrong with that? Slit's a chrome name,” he tells her, and begins to explain why when he hears a shout from further up the convoy.

“Movin' on,” some warboy yells.

“Guess time's up.”

Toast gets back into the car, and Slit gets up, bracing himself for another good long mediocre and bumpy ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @whoever made the thing where Slit refers to the wife as shinies I'm sorry I stole your thing and also that I don't remember who I stole it from it just fits really well.


	6. Gas Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gas Town

Toast's stomach is a knot. It twists inside her like angry snakes as she drives. Biting at her insides. She forces herself to keep her eyes on the road, on the bike in front of her. Her knuckles are white, she's gripping the wheel so hard.

There's a banging on the roof, so she slows down, just a little. Slit keeps wanting her to drive faster, but it makes her uncomfortable. Helps her worry not at all. She almost wishes he could drive instead, that she could just sit in the other seat, left alone to run a thousand awful scenarios in her head. But that would mean admitting defeat, and she's not about to do that. Also it would probably make him smug, and she doesn't think he needs any more reasons to be. 

It's been near a decade since she was taken, and she can't help but wonder how the place has changed. Not much, probably. The people living cramped together in tiny shacks in the city proper, but pushed to the edges of the guzzoline lake. Where the smell is worse, where sometimes young children drown in the muddy petrol. It's too thick, far too thick. When you go under you stay under.

They're close now, she can smell it. The thick fumes spreading out like a warning, even as far out as this. She can see the edge of the lake on the horizon, a dark stain in the sand. Columns of dark smoke rising from the burning oils fields beyond the town. She can't see it for the rest of the convoy, but they're heading towards the gates. She used to look at them like they were freedom when she was little. As if getting over the bridge and past those would be better. She thought anything had to be better than starving and thirsting and working so hard to barely survive, but she was wrong. Young and naive and wrong. Still. It is all better now.

A vehicle is coming closer, from the town, to meet them. A bike, luckily, just, it seems, to confirm who they are. It follows them as they drive the last stretch. 

The gates to the bridge are colossal metal things, flanked by a heap of scrap metal coagulated into a barrier. Bits of old broken cars stick out, hints of recognizable structures in the rubble. They stop, and the boys on the rig shout to the warboys in the towers, who listen and shout back as they lean on their flame throwers. 

Toast gets out of the car, wraps her shawl over her mouth and nose. It doesn't help much against the smell, but it makes her feel a little easier. She doesn't think anyone will recognize her here, not after so long, but there are no people here still living she has any wish to reunite with. She decides that she's not needed, not quite yet, and walks to the edge of the lake. 

“What are those?”

Toast jumps when she hears Slit's voice, just a couple feet away.

“What?” she asks, irritated, trying to mask her reaction, though it's probably too late.

Slit graciously doesn't mention anything, just gestures to the pieces of metal sticking out of the lake at odd angles.

“Cars,” she says, “thought you boys would recognize one anywhere?”

Slit snorts.

“Not in that condition, they're not. Scrap metal from one, maybe.”

“Leftovers,” she tells him, “after people who've tried to take Gas Town. They stopped trying years and years ago. No one's dared to. This shithole's well defended.”

He looks amused, crosses his arms across his chest and she does absolutely not notice how strong they looks because no. she glances at the disgusting half closed scars on his stomach and that helps. 

“Why'd you come after me, anyway? Shouldn't you be talking to some of your friends?”

“What, smegs from Gas Town? Those mediocre pieces of shit? Nah. The regular guys are rust, and the pole cats're plain fuckin' crazy,” he says with distaste, “and besides, orders are to keep ya safe. Can't do that over there.”

Toast almost smiles.

“I think I'm safe by the lake. Too toxic even for lake monsters.”

He shrugs, but doesn't move away. Just stands there, looking out at the sunken vehicles and shakes his head a little, as if mourning the loss of it all. 

“'S a rust way to go to Valhalla,” he says, “drownin' in mud.”

“There was a kid,” Toast says, “in the shack next to the one I lived in. Was sickly, a lot, we all knew he wouldn't last. His mother found him half floating in the lake one morning. No one knew what happened, if it was an accident or someone did it or something. It was awful. I was little, the grown ups tried to keep me from seeing, but of course I had to look.”

He looks at her, then back to the lake, makes a disinterested “huh” sound. Sympathy is clearly not one of the values of the cult of the V8, despite how protective some of them seem to be of the pups. And yet, for whatever reason, she finds she does actually trust him to keep her safe. Not because she thinks he cares or anything, but he does genuinely seem like he wants to do a good job, like that's a point of pride, whatever the job may be. And his vocal dislike for the Gas Town boys is reassuring. She's not worried he'll try to give her to them or anything like that.

“Should go back,” he says. “Got Gas Towners to impress, boss.”

There's something satisfying about being called that. Makes her feel more in control than she is. She follows him up the bank and back to the rest of the vehicles. Some of the rig crew are having a heated discussion with the guards at the gate. 

“Find out what's going on, will you?” She asks Slit.

He looks annoyed, but obeys, heading over. Toast leans against the car and sighs. It's hard not to think that she could, theoretically, just get in, drive away. She could run back to the Citadel, hide there, but of course that's not an option. Furiosa would be disappointed. The warboys would lose all respect for her. Her sisters would probably understand. But they will also understand that she can't do that, can't take what seems like the easy way out. Or they will see, when she tells them about it when she gets back.

She looks up as she hears movement, expecting Slit, but when she turns around there's a different warboy standing by the car, looking at her. Or she thinks he is. It's one of the polecats, she thinks, full face mask and goggles. She hates them, hates that there's no face to read. Just body language, and even that is sort of perpetually threatening, and not helpful at all.

“What do you want?” she asks, perhaps with more malice than necessary.

“You one of the old guy's wives?” he asks, voice muffled.

“I'm no one's wife,” she tells him, voice hard.

“One of the full life treasures that got stolen,” he continues, and takes a step closer.

Toast fumbles, as discreetly as she can, in her pockets for the knife she always keeps there. There are guns in the car, but she hopes he doesn't intend to be as threatening as he seems. She shouldn't have sent Slit away.

“Ya know,” the polecat says, takes a step closer, “my whole crew died that day. Cut down, yeah, by you and your little friends.”

“Yeah?” she says, voice quivering more than she likes, “that's what happens when you're on the wrong side of a war.”

“And I'm thinking, they wouldn't have had to go so soon if it weren't for you people having to run off.”

He edges closer with every word, and she backs up, but he's between her and the crew from the Citadel, now. He's been her and the stash of weapons in the car. Toast grips the knife hard. The polecat isn't obviously armed, but ropes and hooks of various kinds dangle from his belts, and no doubt he's got tools in his pockets, not to mention how much stronger he is. She debates calling for Slit, or for helps in general. Then she pulls her knife, holds it in front of her. The polecat makes a weird muffled sound that might be a laugh. She glares into the dark goggles.

“Listen, I'm sorry your mates are gone, but you need to stay the fuck away from me or you'll be joining them!”

“What you gonna do, shiny? Stab me?”

“I might. But you know what? If you hurt me, then this exchange is over. Not us, but the delivery. No more produce or aqua cola for Gas Town, and you know what? I don't think your remaining mates'll appreciate that much.”

Her heart is racing, but she manages to keep her face neutral. Keep her hand steady as she holds the knife up like a shield. The polecat seems to be considering what she said. Luckily, though, she sees a white shape approaching out of the corner of her eye.

“What's goin' on? You thinkin' of hurting one of the leaders of the Citadel, mate? Thinkin' of starting a war?”

Slit comes into view proper, gets between her and the polecat. She sighs, relieved, lets her hand fall to her side, knife still clutched tightly.

“It's fine,” she says. 

“Nah,” Slit says, “threatenin' one of the big bosses of the Citadel, that ain't fine.”

“That,” he adds, and she can hear the smirk in his voice, “sounds like somethin' that deserves getting a knife stuck in ya.”

“What, they got you tamed over there?” the polecat asks, “they got the fearsome warboys protecting the shinies got most of ya sent to Valhalla?”

Slit steps closer, so he's face to face with the polecat, so the couple inches taller he is is made clear. 

“Nah, but unlike you I can do my fuckin' job, ya mediocre piece of rust. Now get back to climbing your stick or whatever it is you do.”

Slit ends the threat with a growl, and the polecat stands defiant for a moment, then slinks away. Slit turns around, and there's a look in his face she can't quite read.

“You good?”

“Yeah,” she says, “Fine. I hate polecats.”

“Yeah. Mediocre pieces of shit. But ya need to be better armed. Got a gun in any pocket?”

She shakes her head.

“Just in the car.”

He makes an unhappy sound.

“Get one. Don't think Furiosa'll take kindly to me lettin' ya die.”

“Yeah. Yeah fine.”

She digs through the bags till she finds one small enough, then shoves it where she can grab it easy. Although she plans not to let Slit wander off any more.

“You find out what's going one?”

“Yeah. Just some buzzardshit 'bout not lettin' so many armed vehicles in. Be ready to go soon.”

“Good.”

“Yeah. Don't blame ya for not likin' it here,” he says, looking around with a grimace, “wouldn't wanna stay too long.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All Gas Town stuff based on that one little picture in the art book. Also, for whatever reason, inspired by Paolo Bacigalupi's books. Don't know why but the feeling just fits.


	7. Gas Town (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gas Town (more Gas Town)

Slit stays close by Toast after that incident. He hadn't honestly thought any of the smegs from Gas Town would dare threaten the shiny, but all that swinging on top of their sticks must have made their heads go funny. It's a stupid risk for them to take. He would have known better had it been him. Would've been clever enough to see that their only supply line of green and aqua cola wasn't worth it, not over having been left behind while all your mates went gloriously to Valhalla. He doesn't think about his mindset those couple days before he knew whether Nux would live, because that's different.

“Get in,” Toast says.

“What?”

“Get in the car, okay? Just while we're in there.”

“I can defend ya better from out here. 'S where all the thundersticks are.”

“Really think explosives are the way to go in this town? In _Gas_ Town?” she asks, slightly incredulous.

“Light the smegs up real good.”

“And everyone from the Citadel,” she points out.

He rolls his eyes.

“Fine. No thundersticks. I'm still more effective out here.”

She looks at him for a long moment, then looks down at the steering wheel, gripping it hard.

“Please,” she says, still not looking at him.

He debates trying to convince her that this is not a good idea, but it doesn't seem worth it, and the other vehicles are nearly halfway across the bridge and the guards are looking at him funny. He shrugs, and squeezes in next to her. The original second seat was removed long ago, and this new one's crammed in between modifications and new parts and it's not comfortable. Movement's very limited in here. If there's a fight he'll waste precious seconds getting out. He can barely get to half of his knives without getting out of the car. It makes him uneasy.

The lake surrounds them on both sides, now. It's flat and unmoving, despite the wind that blows tiny dust particles in swirling patterns over the surface. They drive slowly, carefully. There's no railing of any sort on the bridge, and neither of them fancy ending up like the unsuccessful invaders of old. 

Toast looks very tense, still, knuckles white on the steering wheel. He catches himself wondering what happened to her here, to make this trip so hard for her. She looks like a pup ready for their first raid, utterly terrified. There is none of the underlying excitement they have, though. Just grim determination.

As they enter the town proper he's too distracted to pay attention to Toast much. He's never been, really, to any of the other settlements, and to see so many buildings, proper functional buildings spread out like this, unprotected under the open sky, it astounds him. There's people everywhere, and okay, that is familiar, but not the variety. When he looks up at the sky there's polecats swinging from their contraptions, moving stuff, keeping watch and V8 knows what else. The streets are busy, too, filled with people. It's like the corridors in the Citadel, only here warboys mix with the wretched. People out of uniform, who're not painted, who look as broken down and diseased as the wretches outside the Citadel, only here they're doing something. Carrying poorly made baskets of stuff, walking freely around like they're as important as warboys. It feels wrong.

Toast parks the car with a series of jerky movements that almost hit a sickly looking woman walking past. It takes her a moment to let go of the wheel as she stares straight ahead, audibly trying to calm her breathing. She's clearly terrified.

“You okay?” he asks.

“I'm fine,” she snaps, turning, at last, to glare at him.

“Then go do whatever you're here for, then, so we can get the fuck outta this rusthole,” he says, probably more aggressively than he should.

Her glare does not waver. He's not treating her with the respect he would an imperator, he realises, and he's not quite sure why. She isn't one, sure, but that can't be it. She's higher up than most of them, but she's obviously not used to it. Doesn't act like a boss. Not like any of Slit's real superiors have acted, at any rate. She is also, by far, the tiniest boss he's had. He wonders if that's related. He wonders if that is part of why he feels so strongly about doing this job right. Whatever it is it's weird. He hopes it won't go on too long.

Toast talks to the new boss of Gas Town's second in command. Their new leader used to be some high up warboy, one of the People Eater's thirds or fourths in command. The most senior one to survive The Fall, the Second explains. Let himself into the People Eater's fancy tower after, making himself at home. Wears some of the People Eater's old clothes (cut up and remade a third of the size) and calls himself The Mayor. Slit doesn't know what the name means, but he can see Toast's expression of amused disbelief, and mirrors it. 

Slit stands behind her, slightly to the side, hand on a knife as she talks to the Second. He doesn't pay any attention to what they're saying, just watches the crowd, scanning for threats. Keeps glancing back down at Toast to make sure- He's not sure what he's trying to be certain of, actually. Watches for warning signs, maybe? Checks to see how terrified she looks, if she's spotted any enemies lurking in the crowds on her own. Making sure she looks okay because that's his job here?

The whole setting is making him uneasy. He's always liked the smell of guzzoline, but here it's so thick in the air it feels like it fills his lungs, and it's not exactly revving him up. He's unfocused, his head feels dense. It's unsettling as fuck. Making him mediocre, making him do a less than great job, which is just not an option. He may be an asshole (he has been told, repeatedly, and with very compelling arguments that he is), but he does not do a half assed job. Especially not something as important as this.

Slit's not sure when it became an important job, and not just a boring guard duty, not just glorified pup-watching. But it is, now, there's no denying that. It might have been that polecat back on the other side of the bridge that made him realise that something actually could go wrong, that Toast wasn't just scared of nothing. 

He'd had a point, that polecat. Not about the Citadel's warboys being tamed -although Slit had had the same thought, but it didn't apply to _him_ jesus chrysler no-, but about how fucking pissed a lot of people probably were. Especially those whose living conditions had not improved as a result. Honestly Slit wants to argue that his living conditions aren't much better than they were, but there is a lot more green food and considerably larger daily rations of aqua cola, and that's not nothing, even if it was, of course, not worth it.

Gas Town does not look like it has improved lately. Especially not since it's been a good two months since the last delivery from the Citadel. So Slit can see why there could be angry Gas Towners wanting to get in some punches over that. Some might also be mourning their leader, although that seems less likely. The fat old man with his golden fake nose and fancy old time clothes hardly seemed impressive. Not like the Immortan. Not a god, just a supporter of one. 

No, it's more likely the warboys who lost everyone they knew, or those who have heard of the new and freer water policies that are likely to be after them. Who maybe think they can take advantage of the crowd and the strange territory to take the rig and the smaller vehicles. Makes themselves up to look like warboys so they'll be let into the Citadel, so they can take it from within. That's what he would do.

That's not, apparently, what the Gas Towners would do. Because nothing really happens during the talk. Slit is both relieved and disappointed. He very deliberately does not examine the reasons for this. Just keeps sticking by Toast on the way back to their car.

“How'd it go?” he asks.

She squints up at him, not quite close enough that he provides shelter from the glaring sun.

“Didn't you hear anything we said?”

“Nah, not much. Busy doin' my job.”

“What, standing there looking scary?” she asks, half smirking.

“'S what I do best,” he says, smirking right back.

“I'll bet,” she says.

She seems less scared now, which he supposes is good. Walks a little lighter, hands no longer fists at her sides. Which might be noticed by other people than him, so he sends extra scowls at everyone they pass. It's a lot of scowling. He tilts his head so the staples catch the sun, glinting ominously. It's an intimidation technique that took a while to perfect. A while and quite a lot of help. 

Toast doesn't ask him to sit inside the vehicle as they drive from Gas Town, so he gets on the back after checking that she has easy access to all the weapons stashed in the car. The warboy whose task it was to watch and make sure no wretched stole their stuff assure them he's done his job, so that's good.

The drive through the throng of people is slow and not as violent as Slit would like. He doesn't even have to try to stay on the car, though, so he stands pointedly sharpening the largest of his knives. Just in case anyone gets any ideas.

It's freeing to get back to the desert proper. To feel something almost like fresh air. It's dusty, but that is familiar, that is safe and good. He doesn't bother to pull his scarf up over his mouth and nose. It's probably absorbed that nasty Gas Town air, won't be any help at all. Just clings to the car and enjoys the feel of the wind on his skin. 

They get back to the Citadel without incident, something Slit attributes entirely to his own effective watch-keeping. They aren't hailed as heroes, which is always unfair, but there is a group of excited pups waiting for them when they leave the car. They swarm around Toast, but she doesn't seem to be as happy about it as her weird pale sister. Her smile doesn't seem genuine, and she tenses up whenever they come closer than a few feet away, which is often. Warpups sleep in literal piles. They have very little concept of not wanting physical contact.

“Hey, pups, don't bother the boss, yeah? Fuck off back to your trainin' if ya don't wanna end up mediocre,” he shout at them, and they make their sad pup faces, but scamper off.

Toast looks torn between thanking and yelling at him. She crosses her arms and looks at him sceptically.

“You're welcome,” he says, and she rolls her eyes.

“Ya never told,” he continues, “how the talkin' went.”

He leans on the wall, looking down at her. It's hard not too, when she's so damn tiny.

“It went fine,” she says with a sigh. “They're probably nearly as awful as the People Eater was, but they're not near as daring yet. We got our guzzoline, and they still depend on the Citadel for water. They're not strong enough to try to a siege yet, not by far.”

She sits down on the hood of a car, looks thoughtfully on as the blackthumbs check the vehicles for any damage and unload.

“And by the time they're strong enough, well, hopefully Furiosa will have established herself as strong enough to defend the Citadel. Or will have convinced them that peace and coexistence is the way to go.”

Slit nods thoughtfully, fiddles with the spring knife bracer on his arm to keep his eyes from drifting to her. Even the bad one, the one that the bloodbag ruined, that fucks up his aim sometimes, is drawn to her, though all he sees through it is a tiny human shaped blob. He traces the little skull painstakingly carved into the blade.

“An' if they join forces with what's left of the Bullet Farm?”

Toast shrugs.

“Would be bad. Far as I know the situation's still pretty chaotic there. It'd take them a lot of effort to organize. Hopefully they won't.”

Slit frowns.

“Imperator better be prepared.”

“She is. Will be. Slit,” she says, and looks at him till he looks back. “Thank you.”

He nearly cuts his finger off as he accidentally releases the blade in his bracer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have recently become aware that the bridge to Gas Town does, in fact, have railings, because the People Eater clearly took safety seriously. ~~Like when he chose fuckin flamethrowers as the main defence in fucking Gas Town.~~  
>  Also I'm not sure if the term for his arm thing is a bracer. I'm basing my terminology on dungeons and dragons here and anything that goes on that part of your arm is a bracer, right?


	8. Fight Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sort of.

“So it went well?” Capable asks.

Toast shrugs.

“Better than expected. Talks with their second in command went fine. We got our guzzoline.”

“Not what I meant,” Capable says.

Toast runs a hand through her choppy hair. Sand drizzles down into her eyes.

“I know. I know. That bit went… Went okay. Mostly. There was one polecat who wanted revenge, but we talked him down.”

“We?” Capable asks, crossing her arms as a smirk appears.

Toast rolls her eyes.

“I'd talked him into realising how much of a bad idea hurting me would be, then Slit came over and looked scary till the polecat left. Which was his job, Capable.”

Capable's expression remains oddly smug, and Toast closes her eyes.

“Thank you, okay? Thank you for talking to Nux and getting them to send his lancer as protection, is that what you want to hear?”

“Close enough.”

Toast rests her chin on her hand and looks down into the shallow pool in the centre of the vault.

“How do you do it?” she asks.

Capable raises her eyebrows in silent question.

“Trust them? How do you hang around the repair bays without feeling like they're gonna try something?”

Capable puts a hand on Toast's shoulder till she looks up at her. She looks so warm and reassuring it's almost unsettling. Like she's perfectly at peace with every aspect of the society they're reforming and rebuilding. Like she's always perfectly safe. Toast wonders if this is because of Nux or their new found freedom or some combination of the two.

“They're not so bad, we've just got to give them a chance. They won't become better if we treat them with fear and distrust. If we show that we trust and believe in them they'll want to change, they'll want to become better.”

“That's fine,” Toast says, “for the pups. It works, I assume, for them, but the warboys? They're vicious murderers. Yes,” she adds at Capable's look, “even your Nux. Even though he knows better now, that doesn't erase it. The fact that they were practically brainwashed, raised to worship death, doesn't make what they've all done any less real, you know?”

She looks at Capable, hoping her sister understands, hoping she doesn't just think Toast is being bitter and angry. Capable's eyes are narrowed and she's fiddling with her hair in the way she does to keep herself from saying something she'll regret, so Toast decides not to give her the chance.

“You can say they're not to blame all you want. I don't agree, but that's not important, that doesn't matter. The truth is, no matter what, that they have been raised like this, that this death wish, all this violence has been a part of them for as long as they can remember. And that doesn't just go away. I- I know it did or it seems to have done- with Nux, I mean. But- But do you see? Why they scare me, why I can't just believe in them and feel safe in that belief?”

Capable has looked away, her hair a fiery curtain hiding her face. Toast has hurt her, again, somehow. Still, she nods.

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “Yeah, I get it.”

Toast feels guilty for upsetting her, but honestly. Capable is so easy to trust. Toast doesn't understand how she can be, given everything that has happened to them. It's a good thing, probably, that they're not all like Toast, but she can't help but worry about her sister. Worry that Nux is not what he seems or that she will let the warboys get too brave and stupid. That someone will decide they're not too happy with the way things are run now.

“Capable-” she starts, but is interrupted by Nux hobbling into the vault.

“Hey,” he says brightly, lighting up at the sight of Capable.

She looks up at him, and all the worry disappears from her face. Nux winces a little as he uses his crutch to lower himself to sit next to her on the floor, and she fuzzes over him. He places an almost shy kiss on her cheek, and Toast has to admit that it doesn't look like he's likely to snap or hurt her sister. She's willing to bet he'll hurt _for_ her, though, if he thinks he's protecting her. Just because you manage to change what you believe in doesn't necessarily change what you do with that belief.

“I'll let you two get on with it,” she says, and gets up.

They ignore her, too wrapped up in each other to listen. It's very sweet, she has to admit. She wishes she could have that much faith in anyone. An unwavering belief that someone like that wouldn't hurt her, that none of them would.

-

“Do you think they could teach me to fight?” she asks Dag.

“Probably, smegs are violent enough for it. Why would you want to?”

Toast sits down on a rock, watching as her sister tends to the small fragile green things just starting top poke through the earth. 

“I don't trust them,” she says, not bothering to sugar-coat it.

Dag doesn't have the same faith in them as Capable. Makes it easier. Dag straightens up, looks at her thoughtfully. Her eyes sparkle in the sun, the flecks of dirt there she's not noticed somehow making her look even better. 

“Probably wise,” Dag says at last. “I'm sure some of them will think it's an honour to train ya. Furiosa's probably too busy. Last of the Vuvalini might help too?”

Toast shakes her head.

“Want to learn from the warboys. Someone trustworthy, though, who'll teach me the dirty tricks they use. Nux'd be ideal, but he's still too banged up to do much. I'll ask Furiosa about it later.”

She rubs her eyes. The sun is bright, as it always is, the glare hurting her eyes. She's starting to understand why the warboys wear the black around their eyes. Wonders if there's something similar she can do that doesn't carry so many memories of their abuser. She settles for wrapping her shawl so it shades her face. The sheer fabric isn't exactly light proof, but it helps a little. 

“How was home?” Dag asks, carefully stroking small green leaves as if to coax them out of the soil.

Toast has to concentrate not to snap at her.

“As awful as it was when I was taken,” she says. “Stinks of guzzoline, and the warboys there are worse than the Citadel's. Their new leader's trying to be a little People Eater, hiding in his old place. Wearing his old clothes, too.”

Dag laughs at the image, and okay, Toast has to admit he probably looks pretty ridiculous. 

“I don't think he'll be a threat, though, not for a while,” she adds. “Not unless they find some powerful allies. Gas Town's not as organized as the Citadel. More spread out. And they're pretty desperate for water. Know we can live without guzzoline, but they can't survive without us. Can't launch a siege on the only fortified source of food and water. Not very effectively, anyway. Not without a lot of help from the Bullet Farm, and who knows what's going on there.”

Dag nods sagely.

“Only danger is already here. Which is why you feel like you need to be able to fight.”

“Yeah,” Toast says, “exactly.”

Dag looks almost disappointed.

“Look, I know we shouldn't have to. I know you think we should have removed all need for violence, and I agree. It shouldn't be necessary, but that doesn't mean it isn't. You almost only talk to the pups, right, and I get why that-”

Dag waves her words away.

“I know,” she says.

She walks over to Toast, presses a kiss to the top of her head, lays a palm against Toast's cheek. She leans into the touch, eyes closing.

“I know you don't like being defenceless. I know you hate being scared. Probably be good for you, making them teach you fighting. Make you less afraid. And we'll hope you'll never need it, yeah?”

Toast looks up her with a grateful smile. 

“Yeah.” 

Dag's smile is almost as radiant as the sun.

“Now get out of my way,” she says, “the tiny ones are coming.”

She nods towards the small horde of pups spilling out from the stairwell. They all look identical to Toast, but Dag calls out names and greets them all with pats on their heads. Toast moves a little way off, to a different rock, to observe. 

The pups take to their tasks with enthusiasm. Running around with buckets of water and small spades. Still, they are surprisingly careful handling the plants. It must have been made clear to them early how valuable the green is. Dag wanders around, helping and guiding them. Smiles at them and tell them how well they're doing. It's clear why they like her.

“Little smegs're gonna grow up soft,” a voice says behind her and she jumps.

Slit is standing a few feet away, arms crossed, shaking his head at the pups. It bothers her that she didn't hear him. Maybe sneaking is part of lancer training. He doesn't apologise for startling her. Perhaps he didn't notice, or maybe he's doing her the kindness of pretending he didn't.

“What are you doing here?” she demands.

“My job,” he says simply.

“Watchin' the pups so they don't hurt themselves,” he elaborates when she keeps staring at him suspiciously.

“Oh,” she says.

“Ain't bad work. Shame they'll become almost as soft as Nux, though.”

“What, children not becoming violent killers is a shame to you?” she asks, spiteful.

“Yeah,” he says, “be rust at doin' war. Make for poor warboys like that. Citadel might fall 'cause of that.”

“But they're still learning to fight, aren't they?”

“Yeah. Only a two hours every day. As if that could be enough, but the _glorious imperator_ seems to feel it'll do,” he says, rolling his eyes.

One of them, she sees, is a mess of blood. She wonders if it sees anything.

“I think they'll be fine,” she says, “without being quite as vicious and murderous as you.”

He grins like she paid him a compliment. In warboy terms she supposes she did.

“What do ya know of fightin', anyway? Look as weak as the pups. Bet ya wouldn't last a minute with that little guy,” he taunts, pointing at a pup that can't be more than five years old.

“Teach me, then,” she challenges.

“I- What?”

He looks genuinely confused.

“Teach me how to fight warboys. Then I won't have to use you as a guard again.”

He frowns.

“You want to learn how to fight?” he asks, and she can't quite read the look in his eyes.

“Yeah. Figure at least one of us should know,” she says, keeping her face carefully neutral.

“That is-” he begins, then falters.

“I can teach ya,” he recovers, smugness returning to his face.

“Good,” she says, “When can-”

She's interrupted by distant shouting. It's from the lookouts, she thinks. She can't quite make out what they're trying to say, but it sounds frantic.

“Someone's coming,” Slit says, and she's surprised he can hear better than her with that thing on his ear.

“What kind of someone?” she asks.

“Don't know,” he says, “but they're close.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slit is very much heart eyes emoji, just in case that wasn't clear.  
> Also it's been like a week since last chapter oops. I'm sorry, there's just been uni and days lost to hangovers and art stuff and, to be fair, a lot of laziness. I'll be better.


	9. New Arrival (0.5)

Slit follows her to the edge, satisfied that the pups are to distracted by whatever's going on to hurt themselves. She squints into the desert, sun in her eyes, as if she can make out the identity of whoever's out there from where she's standing. It's no more than a dark point in the warm orange sand from where they're standing. A single vehicle, it looks like. Hardly a threat.

A few of the pups wander closer to them to try and have a look at what's going on, but Slit shoos them back to Dag. They're probably smart enough to stay safe, but with two of the wives watching he's not taking any chances. Toast doesn't even seem to notice. Seems fixated on the desert. There's something like hope in her eyes, but he can't understand why. Surely the wives have gotten all they wanted now?

Slit crosses his arms over his chest, bracer digging into his skin uncomfortably. Stands quietly observing her. She's not like the other shinies, he thinks. Not that he knows too much of them, but she seems more aware of the world. Maybe it's because she's not from the Citadel. He doesn't know where the other came from, if they were all wretched lifted up when the Immortan declared them good enough to be his brides. 

Toast wanting him to teach her to fight, that was. It's not what he expected. What does she expect to have to fight in the Citadel? The warboys here wouldn't dare touch her. Maybe she plans on leaving again, on going to some of the other settlements. That seems risky, to Slit, if needing to fight means that she intends to go alone. Which is the only thing that makes sense.

“I'm going down to see who it is,” Toast announces. 

She walks past him with determination. He stands for a moment, watching her descend the stairs into the Citadel till she disappears. Teaching her fighting's going to be fun. 

Slit would also quite like to know what a single vehicle is doing driving up to the Citadel, but he has actual almost proper work to do. He can always speculate. Perhaps it's the bloodbag finally returning. He hopes not. That piece of rust messed up his eye. 

“Slit?”

He looks up, then down at the small warpup in front of him. Large bright brown eyes framed by black look up at him and Slit has a sneaking suspicion the little guy's about to ask him something. 

“Yeah?” he says, attempting to make his displeasure at the idea of any sort of favour clear.

“Wanna come help wiw the greens? Please?” the little one asks.

Slit glares at him, making it clear, he hopes, how unlikely and frankly insulting the suggestion is. The little one looks down, disappointed, slinking back the group. Dag sees this, and glares at him. Slit glares right back. Playing pupsitter isn't his job. Or, well, it is, but he doesn't have to be nice about it. He will damn well relax lazily in the sun if it pleases him.

As he lounges on the most comfortable of the rocky outcroppings littering the outer edges of the Citadel's roof, he thinks about Toast. This is worrying. He ought to be thinking of better things, like the chromest kind of explosion to die in, or how to make his weapons shinier, or what kind of designs he can carve into his skin to make sure everyone knows he is the scariest warboy this side of the salt plains.

But it's that chrome and slightly resentful face that shimmers behind his eyelids. Looking at him like he's mediocre most times. Sometimes looking at him like he's not. He's not quite sure which he prefers. Nor why she keeps showing up in his thoughts. She's pretty chrome, sure, but all the shinies are, and he doesn't think about them that much. Maybe he needs to see the organic. But he's gone and now there's a shiny trying to be the new one, so that's not going to help. He's got to get her off his mind, somehow. Make his thinking go rusty, make him less effective. 

He'll go down to the fighting pits, he decides, when he's done looking after the pups. Beating some other warboys until only their driver can recognize them is always good to get himself to focus. No room for thinking there. Just instinct and making sure the other guy gets hurt more than himself. The sweet, stinging concentration of pain. And- And making sure to make note of how the others fight so he can teach her how to counter those kinds of attacks V8 fuckin damn it. This is not good.

He looks over at the pups to distract himself or to get back to his actual work or to avoid questioning his intentions. Dag is kneeling next to the small pup who talked to Slit earlier, gesturing gently to the small green thing in front of them, humming some melody that's not quite meant to be hummed gently. It sounds almost like some of the Doof's stuff, but that can't be right. He hasn't played war since the Fall.

-

“You're gonna train her? That's chrome!” Nux exclaims, grinning brightly like he always does, scars stretching.

Slit grunts in response, frowning. 

“I mean, even that she trusts ya to, Capable says it's real hard for 'em all. Trustin' us, I mean, not fightin'. Well, probably that, too. Ya know, I bet they all would like to learn to fight, don't ya think?”

Slit shrugs.

“Seem mostly into not needin' to,” he says.

Nux nods thoughtfully.

“Yeah. Capable explained it to me but- they're not-” he struggles.

“Not ready?” Slit suggests.

“Not that. 'S just. Not sure they understand. Think Furiosa does.”

“Course she does. One of us an' all.”

“Don't say that to her face,” Nux warns.

“Yeah, yeah.”

The boss tries to keep quiet about it, but she clearly resents most of what the Citadel is. It was never her plan, Nux had told him, to come back. Never her plan to reform. They were running away, after all, not attacking. Nux says they're trying to make the best of it, but it feels like they want to tear it all down. Not literally, not physically, because that would be better, that they could fight. You can rise up against that kind of thing, but what they're doing now? Ruining everything with sneaking “kindness” into their systematic destruction of all the Citadel is or was? That tricks everyone.

“Stop it,” Nux says.

“Hm?”

“You've got that face like you're gonna stab someone.”

“Since when's that been a bad thing?”

“Since we're not s'posed to stab anyone unless we need to.”

“How d'you know there ain't people in need of bein' stabbed round here?”

Nux just sighs. Looks at Slit with those huge intense eyes, no longer blue in the darkness. Slit rolls his eyes at his driver.

“It's better now,” Nux insists.

“How?” Slit demands, although he knows Nux's arguments well.

It's not the first time they've had this conversation.

“Ya spent ten hours loungin' in the sun like a lazy fuckin' lizard instead of doin' any real work.”

“That ain't better. Just comfortable.”

“There's more aqua cola, more food.”

“Gonna run outta that stuff real soon at this rate.”

“Love of the V8, Slit.”

“Not enough enthusiasm for the V8 any longer. Pups ain't trainin', just sittin' round bein' read wordburgers to or playin' with green shit. Gonna grow up soft an' mediocre. Gonna grow up like you.”

“Piss off.”

Slit grins, finally getting through.

“Gonna wind up followin' shinies round makin' soft eyes at 'em an' let everythin' they are go rusty,” he continues. “An' then everyone'll be soft an' useless 'cept for me, an' when the Bullet Farm an' Gas Town invade they'll win, probably, 'cause chrome as I am, I probably ain't gonna fight all of 'em. Might even switch to their side. They might be mediocre, but at least they're tryin'-”

“Thought I was the traitorin' filth,” Nux says, and something in his voice tells Slit he might have gone further than he should.

He looks down. It's right, he's not forgiven Nux for that yet. But he's given up on avoiding him now. Just made him angrier. And not in a good way, not in a way that helps. Not in that focused fighting way. Just made him do his work too aggressively, made him mess shit up.

“Yeah,” he mumbles.

“Probably only get worse with the new one, though.”

“She ain't new Slit.”

“New to this, never saw much of her before.”

“Might be. Still ain't new. Probably be good.”

“That your words or your shiny's?”

“Capable.”

“What?”

“Her name's Capable. Don't call her a- a-”

“A thing?”

“Yeah. She's the chromest person in this rusthole. An' she know's better'n me. An' a lot fuckin' better'n you.”

Slit grimaces at Nux. Nux grimaces right back.

“You'll figure it out,” Nux says.

“I fuckin' doubt it,” Slit tells him, and Nux grins infuriatingly, like he tricked Slit.

He glares at Nux, and turns to face the wall. Nux's breathing is smug, somehow, even as it slows to a steady rhythm, only occasionally interrupted by coughing. It's somehow both the most annoying and comforting sound Slit knows, and, as he has so many times before, he falls asleep to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shitting shit I am bad at updates. I just. Uni makes me so tired? All the time? So do naps for whatever cruel universal irony? I think it's because I don't have a coffee maker in my studio. Instant coffee just isn't the same. If someone wants to mail me an espresso machine the chapters will be more frequent. No but seriously I am both lazy & sorry.  
> Also realised today that Zoe Kravitz is in a band and had to take a half hour break in writing this to look at their music videos while in a constant state of heart eyes emoji. I am so in love.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *chanting* fight fight fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ~~This chapter woulda been out sooner but I had to spend a good three hours trying to draw Josh Helman & crying because that's really hard and then drinking because how else would anything-~~  
> I wrote this excuse two days ago I am human garbage

Toast sits in the doorway to her small room in the dome, staring, still in disbelief, at the shining figure in the centre. She sits by the edge of the pool, rinsing the sand and grit from her long blonde hair. The late afternoon sun makes it shimmer, makes her look even more radiant than she usually was. Is. Impossibly is and now will be.

It's only been a few hours since the lookouts managed at last to identify the occupant of the mystery vehicle. Angharad. Returned against all odds. Covered in dirt and badly patched up scars and dark rags, but their Angharad still. Riding on the back of the bike of some member of a small tribe, a group who had rescued her as she lay dying in the sands. They'd stayed long enough to get suitably paid in food and fuel and water, then left as if the Citadel was poison. Maybe that was smart.

Toast and her sisters had all run to meet her as soon as they realised. Had embraced her and not let her go for long minutes. Had talked over her exhausted explanations with declarations of love and relief and amazement. 

They were all astounded that she had survived, naturally. To hear what had happened. That she had had the bastard's bastard cut out of her dead and been left for the crows. They wanted to demand more answers, about where she had been and what had happened and why oh why it had been two months before she came back. But Angharad had been tired, understandably, had been glad to be back among her sisters but had wished for a moment alone. Wherever she had been there had not been the vast excess of water that the Citadel had. Which was why Toast was now sitting half secretly watching her wash her hair.

Toast wants to keep watching her, in case she disappears, in case she is a mirage in case there is something in the water and they are all seeing things. But her sister remains as real as can be. The edge of the doorway is hard and she shifts, uncomfortable. She's not ready to look away. 

-

“They're ready to trade with us,” Angharad says between mouthfuls.

They are sat round a shaky table shoved between stacks of books in the Dome. The lamps are lit, shaky haloes of yellow illuminating their faces. Outside the windows the sky is black void.

“What have they even got?” Toast asks.

It's just the five of them there, crowded round the table. There are bowls full of vegetables, a luxury, a celebration. There's even a small bottle of the foul stuff the warboys drink, but no one's done more than politely sip at theirs yet. It tastes like Toasts imagines guzzoline would.

“Salvage, mostly,” Angharad says. “But from further away. And they're mostly interested in our water. They were seeking out a source a long way off. Which was why it took so long for news of your taking of the Citadel to reach.”

“I guess we need all the allies we can get. Talk about it with Furiosa tomorrow?” Capable suggests.

They nod, and the others fall into chatter, updating Angharad on what the Citadel is like now, what has happened. Who is doing what and who was lost and who survived. Angharad seems not- not exactly glad, but relieved, perhaps, at the news of the Organic's passing. Which is understandable. Seems genuinely glad that most of the warboys seem to be adapting to the new rule, although surprised at quite how close Capable and Nux have gotten.

“You keep him in your bed?” she asks, almost incredulous.

“Don't say that like he's a pet,” Capable accuses.

“I'm sorry,” Angharad says, “it's just- Just sudden.”

Capable hastens to assure her she has said nothing wrong and, for what is probably the fiftieth time, that they are so glad she's alive and back and safe and alive. Angharad smiles and seems better. She doesn't look greater after so long away from the comparative luxury of the Citadel. The filth of the desert hasn't quite come out of her hair or from under her nails, and the skin on her face and shoulders is cracked with sunburn and riddled with small cuts.

“How are the pups?” Angaharad asks, and Capable and Dag start telling her in great detail how well they're adapting.

Toast zones out a little at that. She cares about the little ones, yes, but the updates she gets some times twice daily leaves her well informed. She stares, instead, at Angharad's clothes. They're filthy despite being washed, the red dust of the desert not quite removeable. Full of tears and poorly executed stitches and intricate symbols the meaning of which Toast can only guess.

Angharad retires early, claiming exhaustion. Which is probably true, but Toast suspects she is a little overwhelmed too. Toast doesn't blame her. She and Dag and Capable and Cheedo have all crowded her, and from what she says it's been a long drive from the tribe's camp.

Toast lays on the thin mattress in her room, staring up at the darkened ceiling. She feels as tired as Angharad looked, but sleep eludes her. There's too much going on with Angharad coming back. Too much to rethink. What if there are even more survivors out there? Angharad said Miss Giddy hadn't made it, but there were so many out in the desert that day. Perhaps more warboys survived but were picked up by one of the other settlements, perhaps they are still bitter. It's unlikely, sure, but they all thought Angharad died under the Gigahorse's wheels. They all thought there was no one to go back for.

Thinking back their escape seems almost selfish. There were so many other victims in the Citadel. So many who needed their freedom as badly as the sisters did. To think freeing five people would change anything seems, in hindsight, ridiculous. On the other hand, of course, if it wasn't for their escape, everyone wouldn't be free now. It had cost so many lives, too many, but isn't it better now? The pups are doing better, the milking mothers are free and the wretched are, slowly, being integrated. They are building something. Something worthwhile. 

Toast wonders, for a moment, what will happen with the leadership now. Furiosa is the Imperator, the highest ranking one in the warboy hierarchy, the one who understands, but- but maybe she is to close to it. Angharad was always the leader among the sisters. The visionary, the one with a plan, the one who talked Furiosa into helping them escape. Perhaps they will lead together. They are, after all, the ones to whom it seems to come naturally. Toast could never lead. She can have strong opinions about how the leading should be done, but she doesn't think she can do it herself. Doesn't want to. Not ready to make herself a target like that.

-

She starts training with Slit not many days later. He tries to take her down to the pits, where the warboys fight for fun, but Toast doesn't let him. She's not ready to be alone with that many warboys yet, not even if some of them seem surprisingly harmless. So Slit finds them a corner in a storage area, where they keep a few old car wrecks. He clears a large circle on the floor, and when he sees how uneasy she still seems he disappears for a few minutes. 

When he comes back he's got a handful of scraps of fabrics and Nux limping after him. Toast nods a greeting at him, confusion apparently clear on her face.

“Just here to see if I can get anythin' useful outta this old thing,” Nux tells her, heading over to the least decomposed looking of the old cars.

He disappears into the rusted, skeletal heap. Toast suspects he is there to put her at ease, and possibly to report to Capable. Which is fine. It does make her feel a little easier. Slit may not be quite as tall as Nux, but he looks a lot stronger and a lot scarier, there is not getting past that. Especially when there's no external enemy for him to direct his violence at, and they're down here in the dimly lit rooms.

“Here,” he says, and hands her a few scraps of the fabric.

She looks (up up up) at him questioningly. He rolls his eyes, which is uncalled for and grabs her hand. She tries to yank it away, pulse rising rapidly when she can't.

“Relax,” he says, “just gotta make sure ya don't ruin your hands.”

She relaxes some as he surprisingly gently wind what looks like a filthy rag around her knuckles.

“'S just to make sure ya don't hurt 'im too bad,” Nux says from within the car.

“Fuck off, Nuxy, it's to make sure she doesn't break her hands against my muscles,” Slit replies loudly.

Toast fights against an amused smirk. Tells herself to calm down, that she's here because she doesn't want to have to feel scared in situations like this. She lets Slit wrap her other hand too, and she her how to stand.

“Gotta be a bit more to the side,” he says, adjusting his pose so she can mirror it. “Make yourself a smaller target. Even more'n you are,” he adds with a smirk.

She mirrors him, hands held up in front of her in clumsy fists. She can see Slit's eyes flicking to them, sees his face work as if he's trying to decide something.

“Good,” he says, “Now hit me.”

She lunges forward, crossing the space between them, but he steps easily to the side, and she's thrown off balance and suddenly facing the blank wall. She can hear his amusement as he tells her to try again. She turns slowly, trying to control her movement better this time. Steps closer, eyes flicking to his hands (which are huge, those fists could kill her so easily, they-) before she tries again, her blow glancing harmlessly off his side.

“Better,” he tells her. “Okay, hit me as hard as ya can, I won't move.”

She squints up at him, but it doesn't seem like a trick. Fist curled, fingers protected, she punches him in the stomach as hard as she can. And well, that's not the best decision she's ever made. It's almost like he's stuffed with metal on the inside too, because her hand. Fucking. Hurts.

“Good,” he says, watching her cradle her fist with amusement. “Gonna teach ya what spots to go for, the soft spots. Gonna hafta use Nux for that bit, though, 'cause I ain't got any.”

Nux makes an insulted sound inside the wreck, followed by some aggressive clanking. Toast can't help being visibly amused this time, and it makes Slit's smirk widen. It's an unsettling sight, the scarred skin bunching up against metallic staples. She wonders whether it's uncomfortable.

“Right. Now try blockin'. Yeah, keep your arm up like that, an'-”

He moves slow, for her sake, but she's still not fast enough to avoid his fist connecting with her shoulder. It's barely a tap, though, he's barely trying. It makes her realise how defenceless she really would be, if some well trained warboy was to actually attack her. So she does the only thing she can think of, and punches him in the face, now leaning down as he's explaining something she's too distracted to hear.

“Good punch. Y'know, ya woulda made a good warboy,” Slit tells her, grinning.

She feels like he just hit her. Or, well, he did, but that's not why. Her face twists in anger, and she's about to yell at him. She takes a deep breath and walks out instead, leaving Slit to his confusion. She can hear him ask Nux what that was about.

“Beats me, mate,” Nux says, voice faint with distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk with me about how amazing josh helman & zoë kravitz & abbey lee are and stuff on [tumblr](http://indiasierrabravo.tumblr.com)
> 
> Fun fact I find writing Angharad incredibly difficult  
> Another fun fact I am so tired my eyes hurt a lot


	11. Fight Me Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is both punching and kicking whatta treat

It takes Toast four days to come back for their next training session. She looks him in the eye when she asks and this is hard for her, he knows, because she looks away, relieved, the moment he nods.

“Is today okay?” she asks.

He nods again, then adds a verbal confirmation when she still looks down at the floor.

“I'll give you a while to finish that,” she says, indicating the scrapped vehicle he's currently helping repair.

“Nah, I'm good,” he tells her, tossing a wrench in the direction of Nux who, technically, is in charge of the fixing up of the rust heap.

It clanks on the floor a few inches from where Nux is laying half under the car, startling him so he reflexively knocks his head on the car's insides. Slit grins wide at the curses that follow.

“Shh Nux, can't talk like that in fronta the bosses,” he chastises, and a hand appears from under the car making a very rude gesture.

When he looks at Toast she seems amused, so that's good. Fighting afraid is good, makes you focus, but not when you're still learning how to throw a proper punch. She had hit him pretty good the last time, dislodged one of his staples enough that the skin tore, but he suspects it hurt her as much as him. Maybe that's why she waited as long as she did. Although if a single punch does that, their lessons are going to have to be too rare to do much good.

The room is a mess of spare parts and tools, so he kicks them out of the way, shaping a makeshift ring out of debris. Makes sure there's no sharp parts the shiny can fall and hurt herself on because somehow people will claim it's his fault if she gets hurt, and they'll find some way to punish him, to try and make him mediocre. Which, clearly, is impossible, but the attempt will not be fun.

He tosses fabric strips to Toast, who catches them and clumsily bandages her hands. Slit watches as she fiddles with them, his gaze perhaps, even he admits, not that of a trainer, not quite. Because she is shiny, very much so. He can understand how Nux let himself be seduced so easily, because there is something about the clean, smooth skin, the shiny hair, the soft looking lips that feels oddly tempting. Only Toast's nails are broken and dirty, and there are scratches on the back of her hands and muddy stains on the warboy cargos she wears. But that just makes her shinier. Cracks in the gleaming chrome surface that highlights the contrasting sheen.

“Ready?” he asks.

She nods, narrowing her eyes and adopting a stance that's fairly close to what he taught her. 

“Arms up,” he tells her, “don't wanna get that face damaged.”

Which she responds to by lunging for him. Must've hit a nerve. He blocks her punch easily, but momentum carries her forward and she crashes into him. The top of her head barely comes up to his shoulders. He pushes her back carefully, in case she got a concussion crashing into his steel hard muscles. Ignores the fact that he can feel her hot breath against his chest.

“Good. Usin' anger's good. Ya gotta be careful though,” he says, grabbing her and shoving her up against the wall, an arm tight against her throat, “'s easy to take advantage of.”

He releases her and backs off a few feet. She still looks angry, but also scared. As she should be. She needs to be, he thinks, to make her want to learn badly enough. But he finds he doesn't want her to be. Fucking buzzardshit Nux is spouting must've gotten into his head. 

“Maybe I'll pay more attention if you stop insulting me,” she says pointedly.

He smirks, and blocks the punch she aims at his throat, his face being almost out of reach. Stepping back quickly he jabs at her, a series of punches so light he bets she can barely feel them. She blocks the last one, but not the others, and stumbles.

“Gotta watch your feet. Arms can't do it all,” he says.

She responds by kicking at his leg. He lets her hit him. It will help, he thinks. Fighting angry isn't any fun when you don't hit anything. Something, of course, he has no experience with. But others, probably. Lesser warboys. Wretched. Wives. She lands another kick against his knee, seemingly having read his mind. This one actually quite hurts, but he's not going to let her know that.

“Better,” he praises, “you're so tiny, trippin' your opponent's a good tactic. If he's on the ground you can get in some good face kicks. Mess 'em up real good. Make their face a permanent reminder that no one can mess with ya.”

“That what someone did to you?” she asks, mock innocently.

It takes some amount of self control not to punch her for real. 

“Person did this is long dead,” he tells her instead.

This is true, if not quite in the way he implied. Her eyes widen a fraction, and he knows he's gotten his point across. Or he had, until Nux makes a snort laugh sound from under the car. Slit had forgotten he was there. So, apparently, had Toast, because she flinches at the sound. Then, understanding the implication, she smirks. Slit fishes a small screwdriver out of a pocket and tosses it at Nux's leg.

“Back to trainin', Slit,” comes the muffled response, and Slit rolls his eyes.

Toast's amused smirk is still firmly in place, and some part of his head, the one Nux has made all broken and mushy with his fucking lies, thinks that this is better than her looking worried.

The next hour or so, they go over the basics he never got to show her last time. Stances and blocking and punches. What weak spots are good. They rush through it, but he's trying to give her an overview. Especially of what bits of warboys are soft and squishy enough that she can, if not do damage, then at least cause some serious pain. He suggests going for the eyes, but of course, when she tries it on him, well, he's got almost a foot on her. It's not an ideal tactic in this case, they conclude.

They go back to some easy sparring after that, and she does better. It's still about as challenging as fighting a thousand day old pup, but she's improving. Her punches are hard, like she's putting every ounce of her strength into every one. Which might not always be wise, but he likes it. They barely register as painful for him, anyway. 

She throws a series of these fast hard punches at him, and though he blocks them he lets her back him up against the wall. Her chest rises and falls rapidly, and he can't help his eyes being drawn to that. Which earns him a hard punch on the jaw. He laughs, and looks at her face instead. The annoyance and anger there is half hearted.

“Water break?” she asks, still a bit out of breath.

“'Spose you've earned it,” he says, and sinks down to the floor.

He grabs his canteen from a pocket as she goes to get hers, stashed on the other side of the room. Drains the thing too quick, and stares mournfully into the now dry darkness as she sits down next to him.

“Doin' better,” he says. “Got a lot of work left, but ya ain't as mediocre as an hour ago.”

“Thanks?” she says, as if unsure whether he's complimenting or insulting her.

“Gotta keep it up, though, more often'n every four days, otherwise there ain't no point.”

She nods.

“Makes sense. How about every other day?”

“Ain't really enough either, but it'll do for now.”

She nods again, looking thoughtful.

“How long till we can use weapons?” she asks.

He laughs.

“Good long while yet,” he tells her. “Gotta know how to fight without one first.”

She looks disappointed, and the corners of his mouth twitch. Good shiny.

“What do I do if someone attacks me with a weapon in the meantime, then?” she demands.

“Ya keep a gun and some knives in your pockets. What didya think they were for?”

She moves silently, and so he's pretty sure she isn't carrying much in the way of weaponry or tools or anything.

“Know how to use a gun yeah?”

“Yes,” she says, but not with enthusiasm.

“Well keep one on ya. Don't think you'll have much trouble. Mosta the boys're fallin' for all that buzzardshit 'bout being respectful an' soft.”

She looks at him weird, and it occurs to him that that might, in some shape or form, not have been the best way to put it.

“I mean,” he begins unconvincingly, and falters.

She glares at him for a moment, then sighs.

“Guess the important thing is I'm not that likely to be attacked.”

“Givin' all the green'n aqua cola to everyone does help.”

“Would you rather have barely enough to get by?” she asks, “would you rather be always almost starving and perpetually dehydrated?”

He's not sure what all of those words mean, but he thinks yes.

“Builds discipline,” he says. “Keeps everyone in order.”

She sighs, leans her arms on her knees and her chin on her arms. 

“See I don't get that. That view only makes sense if you're on the top of the food chain.”

She sounds disappointed.

“What'sa food chain?”

“It's- uh. Never mind. It only makes sense if you're the one on top getting all the goods. And you're not, so I don't get your point of view.”

Slit considers this. It's clearly more of the Imperator's buzzardshit filtered through Toast but-

“Can't do war if you're bloated with aqua cola an' food. End up lazy an' useless like the People Eater.”

She flinches. He'd forgotten where she was from. But his point, he feels, is still valid.

“We're not exactly giving everyone that much. And besides, everyone in the Citadel's got the same right to live as comfortably as they can,” she says.

“'Cept you don't believe that,” Slit says.

“Don't fucking tell me what I believe, you piece of rust warboy,” she says, but her tone is less aggressive than her words.

And she just proves his point. He generously doesn't point that out. Just looks at her curiously as she stares down onto the filthy floor. She looks very tired and it's not because of the training. It's not that kind of tired, he thinks. Maybe the new shiny being back keeps her from sleeping, although he can't imagine how. Maybe she's scared warboys will attack. Nux has told him that they had the thick metal door to the vault removed, so it's considerably less secure. 

“Think you're up for more?” he asks, and she scoffs as if this was a dumb question.

They keep going for another hour, till Toast's punches have lost most of their strength. Slit could keep at it for ages, but

“My muscles are broken,” Toast says, sitting down on the hood of a car, limbs trembly with effort.

“Good,” Slit says. “'S how ya know you been workin'.”

“Mhmm. Was never any chance to do anything like that before. Think it was on purpose, so he could keep us weak, keep us from fighting back.”

Slit almost says that that was a good move on the Immortan's part, but manages to stop himself. Instead he just nods.

“It's part of why I want to learn to fight, I guess, just to do the things that I couldn't for so long.”

“'S a good reason,” Slit says, his eyes not lingering as she stretches her sore arms.

“Gotta ask though,” he adds, “Why me? Why don't ya want Nux to teach ya?”

“He's still injured.”

Nux makes an insulted noise.

“You coulda waited.”

“I think he would have gone easy on me,” she says, shrugging.

There's a strange fluttering insect inside Slit's ribcage. It remains there even as Nux says some defensive from under the car and Toast thanks him for the lesson and leaves. It remains all through the night, too. He wonders if it will go away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This also took way longer than intended because of university ~~and I had to watch the entirety of Hemlock Grove season 3 okay it was important~~
> 
> I'm sorry if my writing of fighting training Slit style is unconvincing I haven't done any sort of fighting training since I was 15 which is, horrifyingly, nearly a decade ago, so my skills and memory are both rust.


	12. Impractical Emotional Responses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pretty much what it says on the tin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy fucking shit I am sorry it's been ages. I blame uni project and also my sudden weird need to try painting with acrylics again. I haven't been on this site for like two weeks shit. Again. Sorry. Sorry about not replying to anything, too.

“I'm not fuckin' soft, Nux!”

The voice rings loud through the unusually silent hallways, bouncing of stone and metal. Toast pauses. 

“Ain't what I'm sayin', rusthead. Just- Just that it's soundin' a lot like what I was feelin' with Capable. Back in the start.”

“Yeah? Well it's fuckin' not.”

Slit's voice is raised, angry. Well, more than usual. Defensive, almost. She wonders what they're talking about. Or who. She edges closer, clutching the weapons she's started carrying through the cloth so they won't jingle against the buckles on her cargoes. Leans carefully against one of the fat water pipes lining the walls. She feels guilty for eavesdropping, but she is also pretty sure she will have the moral high ground over two warboys for a while yet.

“V8's sake, mate, it's not a bad thing!”

Someone scoffs. Probably Slit.

“The fuck it ain't. You're just sayin' that so ya don't hafta feel bad 'bout bein' all soft an' rusty.”

“Not fuckin' soft, ya piece of-”

There's a sound that might be punching. Toast's not sure. She remains quiet. The scuffle or whatever it is lasts for maybe half a minute, followed by the clanking of metal and two heavy thumps. Either they sat down or someone knocked them out. Nux speaking up again quickly clarifies which.

“Just sayin' it ain't nothing to be ashamed of. She's chrome. Tiny and chrome. An' I get you're a bit lonely now that-”

“Shut the fuck up, Nuxy.”

“'S okay, I miss you too, mate.”

There's a noise that might be another punch.

“An' hey, she's put up with your piss poor teachin' for over a month now, she can't think you're all that bad?”

“Fuck off, Nux.”

Toast considers, carefully, if the conversation can possibly refer to anyone else. But who? Some wretched woman Slit has what- taken a liking to? But no, she doubts that. Doubts he's been training many women. For that particular amount of time, especially. Which means- no.

She calmly goes back the way she came, taking care not to make any noise, not to let them know she has heard them. Because what is she going to do with this information? What the shit is she going to do with the fact that Nux implied that _Slit likes her_? The idea of it is unsettling, gross, like cold slime running down her back. And yet.

And yet it's not entirely displeasing. It implies some sort of power on her part. Some hold on that, frankly, large, dangerous and slightly terrifying man. Which, she reasons, can be useful. 

-

The next few days of training are, well, awkward. It's mostly in Toast's head. She realises this, because Slit acts the same as ever. But she can't help but second guess the motive behind every single thing he does. It's exhausting, and it makes her sloppy, distracted. And Slit, being good at his job, notices this. He doesn't ask her what's wrong. That would, if anything, have been more unsettling. He does tell her that if she's not going to pay attention then she's wasting both their time. 

She walks out, then. Sweating and tired, muscles aching. Heads for the roof. Clear air, space to think. She regrets this decision quickly. The stairs are long and apparently she's been using muscles in her legs she wasn't even aware she had, but before she's halfway up they hurt with every step. 

When she emerges into the sunlight, though, she feels better. She always does. It's the one place in the Citadel that truly feels like freedom. Like life. She understands why Dag spends all her time up here, and why the pups love it so much. As she walks into the field, the soft green brushing against her fingertips, she feels calmer. Feels like she will find a way to deal with this.

Toast finds Dag wandering among the plants, humming softly. She is draped in some of the once colourful shawls from the Vuvalini. They sway in the wind like the tall grass, framing her like the paintings of saints in the historical wordburgers. 

“Hiya,” she says, grinning, when she sees Toast, who isn't sure whether she's just glad to see her or amused at how beat up she's looking.

“Hey,” Toast replies, managing a tired smile.

She feels more tired than she has any right to, having walked out only halfway through today's training session.

“Doing all right, sweetling?” Dag asks.

Toast follows her to the shack which seems more like a personal space than Dag's room in the vault ever was. It's filled with strange little trinkets, all displayed proudly, hanging from string from the ceiling. Dag explains that they're gifts from the pups.

“They're very sweet,” she says. “not always to each other, but they're learning.”

“That's good. Good someone is.”

“Warboys giving ya trouble? Want me to curse them for you?”

Toasts squints at her sister suspiciously.

“You can't actually do that, can you?”

Dag makes complex gestures, looks to the low ceiling and chants words Toast doesn't understand. Toast frowns at her until she laughs and shakes her head.

“Nah. But they don't know that.”

“They think,” she whispers conspiratorially, “that I'm a witch.”

Toast snorts in amusement.

“And you're not exactly discouraging them, huh?”

“Nah. Give them something better to believe in, right?”

“Right,” Toast says, smiling.

“Better they believe I have magical powers than them just revering us because _he_ used to,” Dag says, grimacing at the memory.

“True,” Toast agrees. “'Sides, you've always been the most magical one of us.”

Dag kisses her cheek in thanks.

“Not feeling magical today?”

Toast makes a face.

“Maybe more magical than I'd like,” she mutters.

“How so?”

Dag tries to keep her voice neutral, but there's a girlish excitement there that betrays her interest. Toast tries to think of a good way to say what she wants to say but-

“I think Slit likes me.”

The words spill out of her quickly, clumsily. She looks down at the dirt floor with intense concentration. Dag is quiet for a moment, then she laughs.

“What?” Toast asks. “it's that ridiculous that anyone would like me? I thought you of all people-”

But Dag waves her protests away as she gets her laughter under control.

“No no. It's just. Well. It's been obvious, that way that boy stares at you. Not as bad as Nux is with Capable, but-”

“Ugh,” Toast interrupts.

Dag frowns.

“Are you worried he'll-”

She fumbles for a word, avoidant. Toast shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “I don't think so. I think- I think he actually respects me. It's… weird.”

Dag pats her shoulder sympathetically.

“I don't know what to do about it,” she admits. 

“Do you like him?” Dag asks.

“What? No, of course not!” she exclaims.

Dag just looks at her, eyebrows slightly raised. Toast rolls her eyes.

“Less awful than I expected, but no, I don't. Really. Not my type.”

“Thought you liked them tall? Though I suppose that would include most people.”

Toast glares at Dag, who pretends not to notice.

“Well,” Dag says, “if he's not doing anything about it, then you won't have to worry, yeah?”

Toast shrugs, leans into Dag's shoulder. Dag puts an arm around her, crudely made bracelets from adoring pups jangling.

“I suppose,” Toast says after a while, “that we have to accept any positive feelings from them as better than the alternative.”

Dag makes a non-committal gesture.

“Not if it bothers you.”

“Everything about them bothers me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> V. short but will update again soon.


	13. Dawning Realisations and How Much They Absolutely Suck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toast comes to realise some things and she is Not Happy About It At All.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look. Look I think we all should just lower our expectations with regards to my update rate. I watched all of Flesh and Bone on Sunday and haven't been the same since. On the bright side I now have several references for Helman's sex faces and let's hope I get this fic to the point where all that research becomes relevant.

Sleep doesn't come easy that night, and when it does Toast is plagued by strange dreams. Or she thinks they're strange, she forgets them within moments of waking. They leave a sense of frustration she can't quite pinpoint. She ignores it. 

She wakes up before dawn, before anyone else. Gets dressed and tiptoes out into the vault proper. The sun hasn't risen yet, and there are no lights burning. The view of the night sky is spectacular. And cold. Several of the panes remain broken. She shivers, returns to her room and grabs a blanket. Drapes it over her shoulders and finds the best angle to view the sunrise.

It feels wrong, unsettled. She can't put her finger on it but it's uncomfortable. Makes her skin prickle and her stomach turn but her mind can't keep up. The light starts to creep over the horizon, hazy and pink. It's a wonderful sight. It always is. A moment of genuine and almost soft beauty in this harsh harsh world. It distracts her enough that she doesn't hear the soft patter of bare feet on stone, doesn't notice anything until there is a gentle hand on her shoulder and she almost punches Cheedo in surprise.

“Sorry, sorry,” the young girl says, hands up in surrender.

“No, I'm- Hey. Morning,” Toast says, patting the stone next to her.

Cheedo sits down close, almost suppressing a shiver. Toast moves to tuck her blanket around both of them. Cheedo has taken to the Vuvalini fashions more than any of them, and still wears the headband they gave her. The vest too. It fits her well, and Toast can easily imagine her riding around on the bikes with those women, hair blowing in the wind.

“Couldn't sleep?” Toast asks.

“No,” Cheedo says, shaking her head, “I'm worried.”

“About what?” 

Cheedo looks down, then to Toast, eyes wide.

“Everything,” she confides.

Toast gives her a half smile.

“Me too.”

The warm light of day washes over their silence. The sand goes from black to a bright orange and the sky lightens and becomes saturated. Toast has read that in the Before mornings were greeted by the sound of birdsong. She wonders what that was like. The only thing they have is buzzards, and they are not the flying kind. 

“How's it going?” Toast asks, breaking the silence, “the healing?”

Cheedo shrugs, dislodging the blanket. It doesn't matter much. The sun is warm on their skin now.

“It could be better,” Cheedo says. “They are not… They're not good patients. They don't- I don't think they understand that's it's better now?”

She frowns, squinting into the sunlight.

“They still throw themselves at danger like they are near death, you know? But they're also getting better?”

Toast looks at her questioningly. Cheedo shrugs again, struggling to explain.

“They're getting more and better food now, right, and more water. And mandatory breaks, although I'm not sure they listen to those. So they're doing better. Takes them a little less time to recover, but it's like they have no sense of self preservation.”

She sounds frustrated. Which is good. She wants to help. Has found her role. Toast thinks she will do good.

“They don't,” she says ungently. 

“Not yet, anyway,” she adds in response to Cheedo's expression. “But they can learn. Like the pups. They're easier to teach new things. But Nux as well. He wants to stay alive for Capable, right? So there's hope.”

Cheedo narrows her eyes.

“Is that why you're spending so much time with that ugly friend of his?” she asks.

Toast has to restrain herself from protesting several things about that sentence. Oddly, her first reaction is to defend his looks. This is worrying. Still, she manages a stiff smile. Cheedo is young.

“No. I'm spending time with Slit because he's teaching me to fight. You know that.”

“That's not what I heard Capable and Nux saying,” Cheedo says innocently.

“Hey, you shouldn't listen in on other people's private conversations,” Toast says, ignoring the source of the information that keeps bothering her.

Cheedo looks at her in that way she has. 

“And anyway,” Toast adds, “whatever they're saying? They're wrong. Nothing going on.”

She sounds defensive even to her own ears. Which she should have no reason to be, because she genuinely doesn't like him that way. He's surprisingly decent for a rabid, violent warboy, and if he scrubbed of that paint and stopped shoving metal into himself he might be good looking. But she doesn't like him. She dislikes him less, is all.

Cheedo looks amused. Arms crossed and mouth quirked into a smile. Like she's won the damn argument. Toast huffs in annoyance.

“It's enough one of us drags a warboy into their bed,” she says. “I'd quite like to keep them all far from here.”

“Mhmm.”

Cheedo does not sound convinced. Toast is beginning to doubt whether she is, too.

-

Toast spends the morning planning with Furiosa and Angharad. They're trying, together, to work out how to run the Citadel. It is is not an easy task. Furiosa and Angharad disagree on almost everything. The debates get heated, and Toast finds her opinion is usually somewhere in the middle. She talks them down, or tries to. Attempts to finds suggestions that compromise. It's strange to feel like the voice of reason.

By noon they've been talking for hours, and everyone is getting frustrated. They clash on trading plans and scouting schedules and food rations. But it's good. Means they're doing it right, this being in charge thing. Means they aren't immortans.

Still, Toast is glad to get out of the room. The poorly constructed table had wobbled under the weight of the papers and plans. She heads down towards the repair bay. She trained with Slit yesterday, but sparring seems like a good way to get rid of her frustration. And perhaps to prove to herself that there is nothing more than a respect for his abilities and occasional professionalism from her side.

She is surprised to see him with a small group of pups around him. She pauses in the doorway, observing. They're among the younger of the pups, perhaps as little as five or six years old. He mesmerises them by showing them something or other with the car. It's a little distance away, and the air is thick with sparks and smoke. 

Slit gets up from where he's kneeling on the floor, rolls his shoulders. Stalks over to a different car, barking some order at another warboy, who scrambles away. He moves like a predator, Toast thinks. She supposes he is one. After all, what better describes these men? They are no longer the tools and weapons of a crazed old man, but they still all sharp edges.

She watches him work for a few minutes. Some of the other warboys look at her curiously, but she does nothing to indicate they have any right to question her. They shrug and move on quickly enough. The pups seem intimidated, and keep away. Perhaps she scares them. She finds the idea both pleases and bothers her.

Slit stands, wipes sweat from his face with a rag, leaving a streak of motor oil that messes up his war paint. He looks around, and catches her eye. She nods at him, and he walks towards her. She can't tell if he looks pleased. It might just be the scars. A small pup watches with big, black rimmed eyes from their perch on a car roof.

“Back for more already?” Slit asks as he approaches, and yes, yes he is pleased.

Probably with himself. 

“If you're up for it,” she says.

He raises an eyebrow.

“Whatever ya want, boss.”

“Toast.”

“Toast.”

She follows him to somewhere more quiet and spacious. It might be some sort of storage room, but she couldn't say for what. A few crates of scrap sit in a corner, but it's mostly empty. It strikes her that this is the first time they've trained alone. Which will be fine. Totally fine.

And it is. They spar, and she can actually feel she's getting better. Slit would still beat her easily in a fight, of course he would, but she feels like she might stand a bit more of a chance against someone weaker. Her fighting is more intuitive now, she doesn't have to think before every move. 

He jabs at her, chasing her across the room. He's been trying to teach her to move right, but she's not quite gotten the hang of it yet. She ends up backed up against the wall, his fist hovering in front of her. She rolls her eyes.

“I'll get it,” she says, “soon.”

“Course ya will,” he says, and she's surprised at his faith in her until he adds “I'm the chromest teacher.”

She throws a punch at his chest, and he let's her gradually push him back to the centre of the room. Doesn't hold back her punches. He's never asked her to. She knows this is because they both know she couldn't hurt him. And that bothers her. That it wouldn't even occur to him to consider it. But she is small and she hasn't been doing this for long. She is grateful, however, that he is careful with her. Until she learns, until she can take it.

When he's in the middle of the room he stop backing up, and she crashes into him. He does that sometimes, stops letting her win. She knows it's to challenge her, but she can't help but wonder, lately, if there's other reasons for the contact too. When she looks up at him, meaning to scowl, there's a look in his eyes. She can't tell exactly what it is, but it's intense, and she steps back quick, without looking. Her foot slips against a loose rock, and her ankle collapses under her.

It hurts. It really fucking hurts. It hurts so much she feels like she's going to vomit. She curses, loudly, eyes squeezed shut as she tries to feel if it's broken. 

“Shit,” Slit mumbles. “You good?”

“The fuck,” she bites, “does it look like?”

She glares at him. He's hunched down next to her, looking at her with what can only, disturbingly, be described as worry. It's not a feeling that suits his face. 

“Gotta get ya to the Organic,” he mutters, almost to himself.

“Is it broken? Can you walk?”

Toast ponders this with as much concentration as she can. She's never thought of her ankle as particularly essential before, but there's a part of her mind that is convinced she's dying.

“Help me up,” she demands.

He does, steadying her, and she manages one step before her leg gives up, seemingly without any input from her brain. Slit catches her, lifts her up, one arm under her knees and another round her back. Had she not been in this much pain, she thinks, she might have considered it oddly intimate. As it is it's painfully and slightly humiliating. Hardly half an hour into their session and she's in too much pain to continue. It's not her fault or his or anyone's, but it makes her irrationally angry. But then, that might be the searing pain.

“I'll get ya there,” he says, still looking at her with this strange caring intensity that is so misplaced among the mangled scars and sharp metal of his face. 

It's almost touching, she catches herself thinking. But the pain keeps her distracted. Keeps her from really noticing that the staples in his side are digging into her skin through the thin fabric or her shirt. Distracts from the fact that if she shifts a little she can feel his heartbeat. That is not a useful thought.

Slit turns to quickly around her corner, accidentally knocking her foot into the wall and she winces and swears again. He mumbles a painfully honest apology. She closes her eyes tight for a moment, then looks up at him. His brows are knitted in worry or confusion or anger or some mixture of the three. There's a small wrinkle where his mouth quirks to one side, pulled up by uneven scarring. His deep set eyes are dark blue like the night sky. She winces at herself. This is not going as planned.

“Just get me there in one piece,” she says sharply, looking away.

She's going to punch him again when she can stand again, because he has no right to do this. This has no right to happen. It would satisfy her sisters too much, and that is unacceptable. He nods quick, speeds up. But he takes care, and makes the rest of the walk as painless as it can be given the circumstances. 

The Organic's lab, the bloodshed, is less dark and oppressive than it was, but it still bothers Toast. They used to have to go here for check ups sometimes. Make sure they were at full health. Make sure they were still working down there, a duty the Organic Mechanic seemed to enjoy far too much.

It's better now. They've gotten some proper lights in there, and the cages are gone. There are still warboys receiving blood, but now it comes from willing donors, traded for extra rations of green and water. The warboys seem uncomfortable with this, but they don't object. They know the importance of good fuel, if nothing else.

Slit shoulders past with little care for the other patients. Toast is in too much pain to berate him for it. She will do so later. He deposits her on a bench with great care. Fetches a crate for her to keep her leg on and goes to get help. When Cheedo follows him back there is a level of self satisfaction mixed in with the worry.

Slit looks like he wants to say something to her, opens his mouth, then closes it. Nods at her and walks out, determined strides. His hand twitches at his side.

“Shut up and fix my leg,” Toast tells Cheedo.


	14. And Maybe Not So Much After All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Large angry dangerous lizard shaped puppy bonds with incredibly tiny angry kitten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be written earlier, but I had to get some disgusting Flesh and Bone filth out of the way first. If that's your thing (god save all our souls) you can find it on my profile as long as you're logged in (because I do have some shame). Now back to your regularly scheduled angry children in love and/or denial.

Everything, Slit concludes, is awful. He bases his conclusion on a careful analysis of events. He hurt Toast. It's his fault she, hopefully only temporarily, ruined her foot. It's his fault he won't get to train her for weeks, now, while she gets better. Maybe she won't want to any more after. And training her, he has come to realise, is something he's been looking forward to. Seeing how quickly she improves, how hard she works to get better. She is the shiniest of the shinies, that much he knows. And fucking Nux is fucking right. Which is, of course, unforgivable. 

Slit works alone and in relative silence broken up only by occasional swearing. He makes thundersticks. It takes skill and concentration and precision. It occupies his mind. Keeps his hands busy and his thoughts off tiny shiny people. Other tiny people, though, are harder to keep away.

“Slit!”

Slit groans loudly, squinting over at the rapidly approaching white and black blob through his bad eye. The pup trips over Slit's tools, laid out all neat on the floor, but gets up again quickly. Stands bouncing in front of Slit with an excited grin on his tiny face.

“What?” Slit says with as much annoyance as he can muster.

“Wanna teach me how to make thundersticks?” the pup has the audacity to ask, like Slit hasn't got better things to do, like he's not just a tad fucking more important than that.

Slit scowls at the pup.

“No,” he says.

The pup pouts and for a moment he almost looks like- nah. 

“But Nux told me ya would,” the pup says, “says you'd help me be a chrome lancer like you!”

“Did he,” Slit says.

The pup nods eagerly and honestly? Fuck Nux. Because Slit was perfectly happy being angry on his own. It's one of his specialities. But so is crafting dangerous explosives to be thrown of vehicles at top speed, and he supposes it is his duty to share his chromeness with the younger generations, if only so they have a standard to futilely aim for.

“Fine,” he says. “C'mere. Okay, first, ya need somethin' t'make it blow up, yeah? Somethin' that'll melt a buzzard's face right offa his useless bones...”

-

“Fuck you,” Slit says when Nux sits down next to him on their bunk that night.

Well, technically it's Slit's bunk, now. Nux shares Capable's bed, but occasionally he sneaks down to Slit. It's not just so he can brag to Slit about how fucking chrome and shiny his life is now, although that is clearly a part of it. It's, well. Growing up in the Citadel you don't get used to personal space. And Slit suspects that maybe Nux knows this. And maybe it's out of pity that he comes down to Slit once in a while to sleep. Or maybe it just doesn't feel right with those soft, weak beds he says they've got up in the dome. 

“What?” Nux asks innocently, like he doesn't know.

“Sendin' that fuckin' pup to make me feel like I wasn't useless, d'you think I'm that fuckin' soft?”

Nux shakes his head, but Slit can see the lie. He swings his legs up onto the bunk, kicking Nux in the process.

“Ain't a bad thing, like I keep sayin',” Nux says.

His voice is all honest and innocent like he wants what's best for Slit. Fucking buzzardshit. 

“Fuckin' course it is, rusthead. Just 'cause that shi- 'cause Cape's got ya on a leash, just 'cause she's bribin' ya with breedin' or some shit don't mean it's a good thing.”

Nux sighs, like he just doesn't know where to start with that sentence. He flops down on the bunk next to Slit, crosses his arms under his head and nearly pokes out Slit's good eye with his elbow in the process.

“She's not-” he starts, then sighs. 

Turns on his side, leaning over Slit. Looks down at him with those oversized eyes the colour of endless aqua cola. 

“I'm takin' ya up to see her tomorrow, yeah?”

Slit glares at him. And Nux, being the infuriating piece of rust he is, smiles like he got what he wants. Like he's got fucking proof of Slit being soft. Like he can make Slit be as weak as he is if he's just fucking nice enough. Slit turns onto his side to face the wall. There's a rustling sound as Nux pulls the tattered blanket over them and moves till Slit can feel his warm breath against the brand on his neck.

The worst thing, the absolutely worst thing in the entire wasteland, as far as Slit's concerned, is that Nux was right. Teaching the pup to blow shit up actually did make him feel better. He'd never admit it to Nux. Shit, it's hard enough to admit it to himself, but maybe being more angry and violent isn't the best solution all of the time. Still, he will probably go down to the pits tomorrow. Beat some warboy up for looking at him wrong. That always makes him feel better. He would beat up Nux, but that's probably against the rules now. And frankly he suspects Capable might find out and tell Toast, and that, he realises, is not something he wants.

It's confusing this, this whatever it is. This fixation. It's not just that he sees her face sometimes when he closes his eyes or that he knows she's shiny. Anyone can see that. Or that she wants to learn to fight from him, that she respects his expertise. No, the fucking awful thing is that he actually cares what she thinks of him. If she were another warboy he'd know what to do, how to act. He's used to that, but a shiny? Someone representing all that is new in the Citadel, someone who doesn't like violence or war? That's new. That's scary.

It's not like he's going to change. It's not like he's gonna go all soft and useless like Nux. But he thinks that even if Toast doesn't like war or violence that she can see why it's needed. In this world that's constantly trying to kill you you can't not defend yourself. She's more real that way. More a part of this world than Slit suspects her sisters are. He does want her not to be scared of him, though. Which is new. Because intimidating people has always been his goal. Always been good at it too. Threatening people. Hurting them. Making them regret ever crossing him.

Nux has never been scared, though, he knows Slit won't hurt him. Not seriously, not more than their occasional fist fights that have never led to anything more serious than a broken finger. So maybe Slit's approach to Toast needs to be something like how he acts with Nux? He wouldn't mind sharing a bunk with Toast, even though she's probably too tiny to provide much body heat. Wouldn't mind doing some of the other stuff with her he and Nux sometimes do to relieve pressure, either. 

He remembers carrying her after she got hurt, how small and fragile she seemed, even when yelling at him. Wonders if she would break if he tried anything. But no. No, she's strong. That's why he, well. Whatever. That's why she keeps appearing in his head. She wouldn't break, she'd be chrome and-

He bangs his head against the stone wall. This is awful. She doesn't even like warboys. It's literally her entire reason for making him teach her that she doesn't trust any of them. It's why Nux was there for their training sessions, because she's scared. And then, the first time they're alone, he fucks up. He lets her get hurt. He headbutts the wall again.

“Hey,” Nux says sleepily, puts a hand on Slit's shoulder.

“Stop that, can't sleep through that fuckin' banging.”

Slit lets his head fall heavily to the hard bunk. Nux moves closer, till Slit can feel the raised ridges of his V8 pressing against his back. His arm makes its way around Slit's middle, fingers idly tracing the self made scars. Nose bumping into the brand on Slit's neck despite the fact that Nux is taller than him. 

“Rust,” Slit mutters.

Nux just keeps breathing warm against his skin, steady rhythm tricking Slit into relaxing, into feeling better. His last conscious thought is that he's going to kick Nux's ass the next day.

-

When he wakes up, though, he is dismayed to find he's curled around a loudly snoring Nux. This is not how his morning of revenge was supposed to start. 

It's quiet yet. No one's up and no one's been around lighting the torches. The bunks are far from the edge of the Citadel, there's no windows to let in light. In the darkness, he knows, pairs of drivers and lancers are huddled together against the cold. That's how it is that's how you sleep without getting sick that's how you deal with night fevers. Still, he'll shove Nux to the edge of the bunk before the torches are lit. Because admitting that he misses the heat and comfort of him when he leaves for the dome again for days and days isn't an option. In the dark, though, while Nux is breathing calmly, Slit allows himself to enjoy it.

He closes his eyes, although it makes no difference, and imagines that it's Toast he's curled around. Her small frame wrapped in his arms. He wonders if her hair smells good. It probably does. Like green or something. Or maybe like guzzoline, strong and intense and powerful. Maybe her skin is soft or maybe it's hot like sun seared metal flying through the desert. Which is ridiculous, he has touched her, he carried her through the Citadel. But he can't quite remember anything other than being so scared to drop her. Than how angry she was with him. By V8 she's made him a pathetic mess. He almost understands how Nux has ended up the way he has if this is what shinies do to warboys. Soften them up inside till they're like melted lumps of metal, no longer strong and useful.

-

“'S just through here,” Nux says, darting between the hanging racks of green.

“I know where it fuckin' is,” Slit growls.

Which is sort of true. He's seen the dome from the outside, but he has never been high ranking enough to be anywhere near it. Before, anyway. After the Rise of the New Citadel he has just sort of assumed he would be shot on sight by Furiosa. Has assumed everyone would be that aren't Nux. 

He follows him through the room towards the large hole in the wall. Apparently there used to be a door here, thick and locked to keep the shinies inside. And okay, he can maybe understand that Toast didn't like that very much. He wonders if she fought when she was taken. If she clawed at the door with her hands when it closed. It's a disturbing thought, and he shakes his head to clear it from his mind. 

The dome the vault the new administrative centre of the Citadel is amazing. It's the most chrome thing he's seen. The ceiling a curve of glass dotted in places with green vines. There's proper lamps, not just torches. Machines he doesn't understand, made of wood instead of metal. The floor is covered in stacks of wordburgers. They aren't things warboys have much access to, but as small pups they get to look at the drawings of how engines fit together, to help them understand, so he knows what they are. He can't read much, just a little, just enough to know the markings on cars, to spell his and Nux's names. It would take him years to get through even a few of these.

There's a pool of aqua cola in the middle of the floor, just sitting there like it's nothing like it's not a ridiculous amount of clear pure water, not just the stuff that gets filtered through muck before it makes its way down into the Citadel again. Nux catches his eyes, makes a face like he knows what Slit's thinking. 

“C'mon,” he says, walking up a set of stairs.

There's no one in the dome, not that he can see, and he wonders if anyone would notice if he took a wordburger. There's so many, they could hardly notice, could they? But Toast probably wouldn't want him to. He wouldn't know what to do with one, anyway. Not really. 

Nux leads him around the ledge to one of the openings, and knocks on the stone wall. There's a cloth hanging in front of it as a makeshift door. Maybe they don't like feeling trapped by real ones, Slit thinks.

“What?”

Toast sounds annoyed. She probably has every right.

“Visitor for ya,” Nux says brightly.

There's a sound like a groan. 

“Tell her I'm in too much pain to talk about-” Toast begins.

She goes quiet when Nux shoves Slit into the room. The traitor gives a quick wave to Toast and tells her to feel better and then abandons them. 

Toast looks at him. 

“What are you doing here?” she asks warily. 

“Just… Wanted to see if you're getting' better,” he says.

He sounds unconvincing to himself, although it's the truth. He can't meet her eye, so he looks at the room. It's tiny. A bed, a proper soft one, he thinks, takes up more than half the space. To the side of it there's a table, covered in sheets of paper. She's sitting on top of the blankets, her ankle, now wrapped in bandages, is resting on a small mountain of pillows. She's leaned up against the wall, her lap and the bed also strewn with what look like blueprints and poorly drawn maps. 

“I'm...” she sighs. “I'm fine. Really ready for my foot to function again, but apparently it'll be a week or two before I can walk properly.”

“Sorry,” he mutters.

“What?”

“I'm sorry,” he says again, still not looking at her.

“Hey,” she says sharply, and he looks up.

“That wasn't your fault, you know that, right? I yelled at you because it hurt, not because it was your fault.”

She's looking at him like she's trying to figure him out.

“Shoulda known it wasn't good to train there,” he says, shrugging. “Shouldn't let ya get hurt. Was what Furiosa told me.”

“That was weeks ago, Slit. You're not- You're not responsible for me here in the Citadel.”

He shrugs again.

“Never hurt the s- never hurt any of you, that was what they told us. Otherwise we get thrown down to the wretched.”

Toast sighs and mutters something he doesn't quite catch. Runs a hand through her hair. Swears under her breath.

“Well,” she says, “when you're here you might as well be useful. I need someone to help me go over these suggestions for trade routes, and you'll do. Furiosa keeps promising to come by, but she's so busy.”

He blinks at her. She moves closer to the wall, pats the bed next to her, lifting a couple sheets of paper to make space. Slit's heart is doing some weird acrobatic thing, moving in ways that feel wrong and unsettling and somehow good.

“Come on, then,” she says, and he sits down carefully, trying not to jostle her bad leg.

He towers over her sitting down as well. The bed is so soft, it's a strange sensation. The mattress sinks down under his weight, edges him closer to her. He tries not to pay attention to that. Tries not to notice that she does smell good. Focuses on the papers she places in front of him.

“You know the territories, right? Think this route is good?”

She indicates on his map. He thinks for a moment, then grabs a charcoal piece lying on the table.

“Nah, see. There's a smaller tribe, scavengers, likes attacking here, and here.”

He circles to spots intersecting the line she's drawn up.

“So where do they go to avoid that?”

“Here, let me,” he says, and grabs the paper, drawing in an alternative line.

They go through a pretty big stack of papers, looking at plans. Mostly they're good, but there's factors Toast doesn't know about, couldn't know about unless she'd spent as much time as he has on scouting missions. Like that one place with the huge cavern somehow concealed by the sand, or the spots most likely to be attacked. It feels good to do something useful. There's probably someone higher ranking than him who should be doing this, but he appreciates her asking him. Appreciates getting to be near her, however soft and weak that makes him.

She's looking through some of his corrections on the last map, and he looks down at her. At her roughly chopped hair and the tiny grouping of freckles over the bridge of her nose. The soft curve of her lips. He wonders idly what they taste like.

“Hey, what's-” she begins, looking up at him and going quiet at the look in his eyes.

“Slit,” she says, voice small. 

Like she's scared.

“Yeah?” he says, voice breathier than it should be.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

He looks away.

“I-”

“I heard. Heard you and Nux talking, you know,” she says.

“'Bout what?” he asks frowning.

“About how maybe you, well, have feelings for me. Is that right?”

She sounds so small and worried and he wants to assure her that no, no he doesn't. He's not- He wouldn't-.

He nods. She blinks, looks down for a minute, then back up at him. Then, very carefully, she asks

“What are you going to do about it?”

He shakes his head.

“Nothin', won't bother ya. Know I'm not- Know ya don't-” he falters.

“Won't hurt ya.”

He moves to stand up, but her hand on his shoulder stops him.

“I know,” she says, and he sags with relief.

“What… What would you do if you could?” she asks, and this is some kind of test, it has to be.

He'll probably fail. He shrugs.

“Look at you. Touch you, maybe. Make you look at me like Capable looks at the traitor filth.”

She nods, looks at her hands which fidget in her lap. 

“You know you can't, right? Make someone look at you like that, I mean?”

“Yeah,” he says, and maybe his disappointment is audible.

Because her hand, her tiny hand, is on his shoulder again, and she's looking up at him and he thinks maybe he could look into her eyes for a long time. She smiles at him, and there's this crinkle in her cheek when she does that and he stares at it because he's not quite sure when her face became his favourite thing to look at, but it definitely is.

“But I kind of want to see if I can.”

The words spill from her quickly, like she's scared she'll lose her nerve. And her hand moves up to his neck and she pulls him down and presses her lips softly to his.

It's over so quick he almost unsure if it happened. His heart is pounding in his chest like it's trying to escape. He looks down at her in awe. Her mouth quirks up again.

“Gotta admit,” she says, “I'm almost starting to see the appeal.”


	15. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!: The Emotion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ?!: The Reaction

When she licks her lips she can taste his clay, bitter and chemical. She wonders how he can stand always covering himself in it. But then, as they wear it from they're small, he probably can't imagine himself without it. Perhaps she can make him remove it next time.

Next time? She didn't even mean to kiss him, and now she's thinking of a next time? But she looks up at him, and the look on his mangled face certainly seems to suggest he would want a next time. It's some mixture of awe and confusion, and it makes her feel powerful. She doesn't want to question that feeling quite yet.

“Was- was that okay?” she asks, and she sounds a lot more timid than she would like.

He nods enthusiastically.

“Was good,” he assures her, “was fuckin' shine.”

His hands are fiddling with the sheets by his side, tense with holding something back. She's not sure she wants to know what. She's not sure about anything. 

It's clear Slit likes her. He admitted as much, which surprised her. It seemed to surprise him, too. Probably it's a sign of weakness to warboys. Of being soft. Toast reminds herself to ask Capable advice on how to handle lovesick warboys. But that he's willing to admit that to her, even if maybe he didn't mean to, that's something, isn't it? Some sign that there's something behind that thick, spiky façade? Something, V8 forbid, softer?

“Can you do that again?” he asks.

He's looking down into her eyes with all the courage of a five year old pup facing down a war party alone. And she knows it's wrong, she knows she shouldn't, but she really enjoys the fact that he's so intimidated. But she nods and motions for him to lean down and- yes. Good. 

It lasts longer this time, and she has time to appreciate that his lips, although dried out by the clay, are softer than they look. The scars on his face feel strange under her palm, and she wonders when she decided to caress his face. Maybe at the same time as his gloved hand came to rest on her upper arm. She breaks away, breathing harder than she should be.

“Shit,” she says.

“Sorry,” Slit says, frowning slightly. “I'll get chromer at it I jus-”

“Not you,” Toast explains, “Just. I wasn't expecting this.”

“ _You_ kissed _me_ ,” Slit accuses, and she can't help but laugh.

“Yes. Not what I meant.”

“Then what?” he asks, looking frustrated.

She leans her head against the wall, shifting her bad leg into a slightly more comfortable position.

“I wasn't expecting to want to kiss you,” she tells him after some deliberation.

She didn't expect to have to put effort into trying not to hurt a warboy's feelings either, for that matter. He looks only slightly insulted.

“Didn't expect t'want ya to,” he mutters. “Wasn't the plan.”

“Oh?” she says, trying to keep amusement out of her voice and, by the look on his face, failing. 

“What was your plan?”

He sighs, heavily and theatrically.

“Was gonna take over the Citadel. Become the new Immortan.”

“Of course you were,” she says, closing her eyes. “I have awful taste.”

She wishes it surprised her, but it absolutely doesn't. It's exactly the kind of life goal Slit would have. Shit. Shitting shit.

“That still your plan?” she asks, and she can hear the defeat on her voice.

“Nah,” he says, “too much work right now. Wait till someone attacks, someone we can't fight back. Join 'em, slit their boss's throat, become their leader. Become Immortan, get back to doin' war like it should be.”

And okay. That's slightly terrifying. He looks at her grinning and she's not sure how she's supposed to react. He squints at her, then rolls his eyes.

“Joke,” he explains.

“Oh.”

She's not sure she completely believes that. But it doesn't seem too likely a scenario. Slit would be a poor leader. No sense of self preservation. Born and bred to follow orders, horrible as that is. She doesn't think he could completely break away from it. She doesn't think- he's looking at her. He's looking at her like he's slightly worried she's a threat.

“'M sorry.”

He says it almost like a question. Like he knows he should be, but isn't sure why. Which might be true.

“It's fine,” she says.

It's not. Not really. 

“Actually,” she says, before he can accept it, “it's not. You warboys? You're scary.”

He grins proudly and, shit, okay, she should have seen that one coming.

“And I don't mean that in a good way, I- Look. You could probably kill me in about five seconds, unarmed, just now, if you wanted to. And I'll bet you've got at least five knives on you-”

“Seven,” he interrupts.

“Seven knives. Okay, yes. See my point? You're terrifying. You scare me. I trust you,” she adds, seeing his face, “but you're still scary. All my life, warboys have been a threat. In Gas Town, here, out in the desert. That's hard to get past. So if- if you want me to want to kiss you, you stop with the joking about things like that, you got it, warboy?”

“Yeah.”

He actually looks a little bit ashamed, which she counts as a victory. 

“Good. Now get out, go back to playing with explosives or whatever it is you do, because I can hear people in the Vault, and _no one_ can know anything happened.”

“Not even Nux,” she adds, and gently shoves him till he gets off the bed.

He looks disappointed, but probably he's gotten more than he wanted to out of this visit, so she doesn't feel too bad. She doesn't feel bad shamelessly staring at his quite well muscled back and absurdly low hanging cargos either as he walks out. Perhaps all the knives weigh them down. Or maybe it's intentional. Distract the enemy. Or her.

She hears voices from downstairs, not entirely friendly ones, as he leaves, and sighs. Terrible taste. So terrible.

–

It's getting late when Dag comes into the room without knocking. She's got a bowl of something that steams and smells herby and delicious.

“You know, I could walk fine if someone would just get me a stick to lean on,” Toast says with what is in her view a reasonable amount of bitterness.

Dag smiles innocently.

“Wouldn't want you risking messing up your leg again, sweetling.”

Toast gives her a look, and Dag laughs, the horrible person that she is.

“I'm not going to let you make me stay in here, I'm bored out of my mind,” she says defiantly.

“Oh? Seems to me,” Dag says, sitting down on the bed next to her and putting the bowl down, “like you've had some interesting visitors today.”

“What?” Toast asks, voice as calm as she can make it, because if Slit's told anyone she's going to skin that-

“Got something on your...” Dag motions to the corner of her mouth.

Toast wipes at the spot with her finger and there's- there's white clay. Because of course there would be and of course she wouldn't notice until someone noticed for her. She picks up a stray pillow and buries her face in it to avoid the look on Dag's face. To hide from her shame and the world. It doesn't hide her from Dag's laughter, though, or a hand on her shoulder.

“Never tell anyone,” Toast begs through the pillow.

“I will make no such promise.”

Toast lets the pillow fall into her lap and looks at Dag, pleading.

“Why is it so important to hide him from the world? Capable's quite proud of her white painted war crazed paramour.”

“I'm not Capable. And Slit's sure as hell not Nux. And- And I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't want it to.”

“Not like that,” she hastens to assure Dag, “all very willing. I just didn't intend for that. He was just supposed to help me learn to fight, you know? I don't _want_ to like a warboy. I don't want one to like me.”

“But it happened?”

“Yeah. I- I kissed him. Why would I do that?”

“Regret it, do ya?”

“I don't know?”

They fall silent for a while. Toast drinks some of the soup Dag has brought. It burns her mouth.

“It was nice. He is, too, in his way,” she adds.

“Nice,” Dag says, quirking an eyebrow.

“For a warboy. For a man. We threw Nux off the Rig first time we saw him, remember.”

“I think Slit might not have given up as easy.”

“True,” Toast says, and sighs.

“This is why I didn't want this to happen. He's awful. They're all fucking awful.”

“Don't say that to Capable,” Dag says cheerfully.

–

Both Slit and Dag must keep their word, because no one else confronts her the next day, or the morning after. Her sisters have finally given in, now, and gotten her some poorly made crutches to help her hobble around more easily. She suspects they are the ones Nux were using until recently, because they have clearly been sawed off to be shorter quite recently. Her foot still hurts a little with every step, but that's fine. She's dealt with worse.

She hobbles up to what's now Furiosa's office with the plans she figured out with some minimal assistance from Slit. Carrying rolls of paper while navigating stairs on crutches is, she discovers, not particularly easy. There's pups and warboys who walk past occasionally, but when they look at her as if about to offer help she glares at them till they run away. Capable's not the only one of the sisters who's, well, capable.

Toast begins to regret her decision when she drops all her papers down the staircase she's just come up. She's spent three days more or less not moving, and she feels exhausted and her ankle is aching. The stairs mock her with their steepness, and she sits down on the first step for a minute, just to let her leg rest of a moment.

“Need any help?” a voice asks behind her.

“No,” she bites.

She turns her head to see Slit standing there, arms crossed over his chest. A bundle of the explosive spears is leaned against the wall, and she wonders how safe that is.

“Fine,” she says, only somewhat bitterly. “Pick up those papers?”

He smirks as he walks past her down to get them, apparently having forgotten his guilt at her injury. 

“Leg better?” he asks as he drops the rolls of paper in her lap.

She barely manages to grab them before they fall down the stairs again. He sits down next to her with a thump and the jingling of metal from more places than seems useful.

“Well, I'm walking,” she says. “Not well, but it's better than being stuck in bed.”

Slit nods sympathetically.

“'S rust. Worst part of doin' war is survivin' and bein' too fuckin' broken to leave the Organic's for ages.”

She looks at the countless scars littering his body. 

“Been through that a lot?”

He grins at her, emphasizing the scars on his face.

“What d'you think?”

She winces.

“Must've hurt.”

“Worst fuckin' thing I ever felt. Worse than blowing up in Razor Cola.”

“The chase, right?”

“Yeah. Dyin' ain't so fun when ya wake up after.”

“I believe that.”

She thinks back to that last, terrifying bit of their escape. There was fire and explosions and gunshots, but she can't recall noticing Slit. Probably he didn't notice her much, either. There wasn't time for that sort of thing.

“How'd it happen? Your face, I mean?”

“Ya know those Buzzard vehicles with the spinnin' saws, for messin' up other vehicles tyres, yeah?”

Realisation, along with many far too detailed mental images, dawns on Toast.

“Oh. Oh shit.”

“Yeah.”

She takes in his scars in greater detail, just how far up his cheeks they extend. It's a wonder his face works at all.

“Looks chrome, though,” he adds, attempting, she guesses, to lighten the mood.

She smiles uncomfortably and nods, because that's the only thing she can think of doing. It's disturbingly easy to forget how much the warboys have been through, how abused and beaten and cut up they've been. It's easy because they make it easy, but that doesn't help. She remembers the hard lumpy texture of his scars under her fingers, and winces in sympathy pain. Almost feels bad for complaining about her foot, because clearly it's nothing on what he's had to go through. And maybe her face betrays her, because

“'S fine now, can't really feel anythin' there now.”

“And that's good?”

“Better'n pain,” he says, shrugging.

And that is a fair point. Not feeling is an important skill. Whether it's physical or mental pain you're trying to avoid.

Toast feels oddly compelled to comfort him, but she suspects he would take that as an insult. And it would hurt her pride too much. There's still, despite everything that's happened, a little voice in her head furiously declaring that she feels nothing for him. Clearly that's not true, but she doesn't want to get in too deep, not yet. Because who knows what happens when you tell a warboy you don't want them any more? 

Slit shifts on the stairs next to her, moving almost imperceptibly closer under the guise of rearranging some knives in his pockets. Which is almost- No. No that's not a word that will ever describe him. 

“I've got to get going, got to get these papers to Furiosa,” she says, “help me up?”

“Mediocre,” he says, shaking his head, but she can tell he's joking this time.

He picks up her papers and almost lifts her up just with his free arm. They stand there for a moment, she holding her crutches, he holding her papers in one arm, the other still around her waist. Her neck is bent at an almost uncomfortable angle to look up at him this close, because even the top of her head only comes up to his collar bones. This close she can see that there's a hint of stubbly hair on his head. She can see his scars in gruesome detail, but it's his eyes that draw her in.

He presses her closer, very carefully, giving her time to say something or back away, until they touch, and bends to press a kiss to her forehead. She doesn't know whether this is out of practicality, just because he's so ridiculously and impractically tall, but it feels uncharacteristically sweet. Then, without saying anything more, he hands her the papers, picks up his lances, and goes off wherever it was he was heading in the first place.

“Shit,” Toast tells the empty space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The worst thing about fic writing is forgetting whether you've included a detail and having to go back and reread the whole goddamn thing and notice every single mistake you've forgotten. Also noticing trends in my writing. Really illogical word placement (From Norwegian because I'm almost always super tired when I write??). Slit keeps appearing silently behind Toast. How is he so quiet? He's covered in loose metal. He doesn't seem like he would be sneaky. Also there's usually at least three typos in each chapter that I'm too tired to notice when I edit, so sorry about that. Know it's confusing given the degree to which I use deliberate typos/stylistic verbal speech in narration. Also I thought there was more of this fic? I've been writing it for long enough that I feel like it's gone on ages? Sorry for the long rant.


	16. (The Sun is an) Orange Ball of Love

It takes three days for Nux to figure it out. Slit doesn't tell him, he doesn't let anything show, but the clever bastard figures it out on his own. Or Capable tells him. Slit's not sure. 

“Good for ya,” Nux says, bright and cheery like always, as he tosses a bag of tools onto Slit's stomach.

“Oof,” Slit replies.

“Good what?” he adds, because Nux could, conceivably, be talking about something else than what he's obviously talking about.

Nux leans on the roof of the car where Slit is lounging, grinning and looking so self satisfied Slit wants to punch him, which, to be fair, doesn't take much. Slit stares him down, eyes narrowed, staples clicking on the metal as he slowly and hopefully menacingly turns to face the traitorous piece of filth who knows him better than he should.

“You an' Toast!”

“There's no,” he lies carefully and unconvincingly, “me an' Toast.”

Nux raises his eyebrows, clearly not fooled.

“I saw you smile,” he says “just to yerself while ya where fixin' thundersticks.”

“I like my fuckin' job,” Slit bites back.

“Not that part, ya don't, not that much.”

Slit growls at him, having run out of arguments. Nux's cheerfulness doesn't waver for a moment, and he leans down to briefly bump his forehead against Slit's. Slit continues glaring until Nux has finished rooting through the bag of tools now on top of Slit to find what he needs and has wriggled underneath the car to do whatever it is he means to do. 

The thing is, the awful terrible thing is, that Nux makes himself difficult to hate. They got picked to drive and lance together while they were young, and while Slit's always felt that he should be the driver, despite Nux, purely technically, being better than him, they've been through a lot. Have shared a bunk for years and years and. Well. It's maybe not a coincidence that Slit chose this specific car to be his place to lounge while waiting for some lower ranking repair boy to get him the supplies he needs.

These redeeming qualities of Nux's, however, do not fucking excuse him knowing about Toast and Slit. Slit's not quite sure why it's so important to Toast not to tell anyone, but he's not about to question her. It is, he realises, important to him if it's important to her. Soft. Disgusting. Mediocre. But still the case. 

Toast has gotten inside his mind, somehow, has infiltrated some part of him. Even when she's not there he wants to not let her down, wants her to not shake her head and mutter angrily about warboys and how awful they are. Which is impractical, because he suspects that he, somehow, despite his magnificence, represents many of the qualities she for inexplicable reasons doesn't appreciate in them. Like the ability to kill someone unarmed in seconds. Or the desire to.

But! But. She did kiss him. Twice. She implied there might be more kissing at some point in the future, and he finds he wants that to happen. And she didn't flinch away when he kissed her, either. And he can only interpret that as a good thing. He has no clue how to make it happen, though. How to convince her to kiss him more, to do other things, to look at him like he's chrome. 

“Hey Nux,” he says, turning round so he's laying on his stomach on the car, Nux's bag of tools clattering noisily to the floor.

“Yeah?” Nux says, his voice muffled and distorted by the desiccated corpse of a car.

“How'd ya make,” he begins, then lowers his voice, “how'd ya make Capable like ya?”

Nux scrambles out from under the car, face filled with glee and smudges of engine grease. He leans close, too close, pressing his face right up against Slit.

“Well,” he whispers conspiratorially, “you gotta show 'em you're real shine-”

“Done,” Slit says, and feels righteously offended when Nux laughs.

“No, rusthead, ya gotta… Gotta show her you _care_.”

Slit squints suspiciously at Nux. 

“Sounds like some fuckin' buzzardshit.”

–

The day after, when he's on pup watching duty on top of the Citadel again, he notices that something's different. The Dag keeps smirking at him. He glares at her, but that just makes her more amused. It can't mean anything other than that she knows. Toast, shine as she is, is clearly absolute rust at keeping secrets.

She comes over when the pups take their water break. He can't believe she thinks they need one, they're just playing with seeds in the sun. Dag's too soft on them, he thinks, and it's not gonna end well.

“Hiya, warboy,” she says, amused smile still lurking on her face, and sits down next to him.

He grunts something unintelligible in response, looking at her through the corner of his bad eye. This provides very little information, so he's forced to turn to face her proper.

“Hear you're trying to follow in your mate's footsteps,” she says.

“What.”

“Trying to get all friendly with one of my sisters, just like your skinny pal, yeah? Trying to seduce my Toast with your warboy wiles?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but he can't think of a proper response.

“'S what I thought,” she says, leaning back on the rock.

Beads and poorly made necklaces and bracelets clink with every movement. They look like the messy things the pups put together when released on the scrapheaps. He wonders where she got them.

“How's it your business?” Slit asks with more malice than he feels.

She braces herself on an elbow, leans in real close and shakes a pale, fragile fist in his face. 

“Everything you warboys do with them's my fucking business,” she snarls, and if Slit's mind wasn't so occupied with Toast he thinks maybe this shiny might have featured heavily in his mind.

“If you try anything, _warboy_ ” she spits the word, like it tastes foul, like just saying it conjures up pain, “I will not only curse you, turn the children against you and have you thrown into the desert-”

He likes this shiny, he decides, and almost feels a little guilty for referring to her as such in his head. 

“Thought violence wasn't your thing?” he interrupts her.

“No,” she says, “but black magic is.”

Slit has no idea what black magic is. But he doesn't intend to let her know that, so he just tries to look what he judges to be suitably unimpressed. Dag glares at him for a moment longer, then slumps backwards, laughing.

“Fine,” she says. “Just don't hurt her, warboy.”

“Why would I hurt her?” he asks, genuinely confused. 

Maybe that's what the Immortan did when he liked them. Or rather, that was it. Shit. Dag looks him up and down, half smiling.

“Big boy like you? Thought ya might do it on accident.”

He huffs in offence and confusion. Dag seems amused. 

“Not gonna fuckin' hurt her,” he mutters.

“She's scared,” Dag says, looking to the sky and closing her eyes against the glaring sun.

He makes a sound meant to communicate the question he can't quite put into words.

“Of letting ya close. Of letting herself trust you. You know that, yeah?”

Slit looks down. He is, on some level, aware of this. He doesn't want to be. 

“Yeah.”

“But I think she wants too,” Dag says, and there's almost a hint of disappointment in her voice.

“Yeah?” he asks, and he sounds soft and mediocre in his hopefulness. 

“Yeah,” she confirms with a sigh. “Terrible taste, my sweet Toast.”

Slit chooses not to take this too personally. He doesn't know whether anything more happening between him and Toast means he'll be forced to interact more with the other shi- with Toast's sisters, but even he can see that pissing them off too much probably isn't a good idea.

–

It's another two days before he lets himself check in on her. Anything more often and he'd seem desperate, like Nux. Too eager, too soft. He has to ask around to find her, doesn't know where she usually is. He's not going up to the Dome alone, because that will probably still get him shot. No, that's not safe. The repair bay he's seen her in a couple times, but usually only when she's looking for him to train her, and she's not up for that yet, he's pretty sure.

He wanders aimlessly through the corridors for a while, in the upper part of the Citadel. It's not a place he's spent much time, and he keeps getting lost. Sometimes he gets close to the edge and there's openings in the walls, tiny, long holes, letting in the light. It disorients him. He's almost tempted to ask one of the pups who keep running back and forth carrying messages they can't understand, but it'll do them no good thinking of their elders as weak and useless. He glares at them instead, calls their running mediocre so they'll try harder.

It's Capable, at last, who helps him. She comes walking down the corridor where he's standing and glaring at the mouths of two other ones, trying to decide where to go.

“What are you looking for?” she asks, and that must be where Nux gets that grating kindness Slit can sometimes hear in his voice.

“Toast,” he says, after a moment of trying to figure out a better, less direct way to put it.

Capable smiles and it's just this side of a smirk. Which means Toast told her or Nux told her or whichever. Clearly there are still no secrets in the Citadel.

“She's working on something with Angharad, but they'll be finished soon. I'm just heading there myself, just follow me.”

He walks a few steps behind her, both because he's trying this not being unnecessarily threatening thing Nux talked about and because he doesn't want to see her smug face. Only it's not smugness, not really. More like some kind of… Some kind of happiness on behalf of other people? It seems improbable, but that's what it looks like. He watches her fiery hair instead. When stray beams of sunlight make their way through the holes in the wall it shines like copper.

They come to a small room, which must be right on the edge of the southern side of the tower, because through the wide window Slit can almost see the silhouette of Gas Town. He wonders how Toast likes that view. Probably she doesn't notice it, because she and another shiny are busy looking at some papers covered in writing so dense it would take Slit hours to read.

The other shiny. He recognizes her, suddenly, as the one who was pregnant. Which technically isn't news, it's not that he wasn't aware it was her, but the last time he saw her she lay bleeding next to the history woman in the desert. He hopes she wasn't awake enough to notice him there. Not that he regrets anything, but he doubts it's the sort of thing he wants Toast to think of when she looks at him. He looks at the floor, almost wishing his face wasn't so… distinct.

“Hey, you almost done?” Capable asks. “I need to talk with you, Angharad, if you have a moment...”

The blonde one, Angharad, he supposes, follows Capable out after exchanging a few last words with Toast. Capable turns for a moment on her way out, catches Slit's eye and gives him a small encouraging smile. He doesn't have time to glare back, but he trusts she knows how he feels about kindness and the despicable softening of warboys.

“Hey,” he says instead, turning to Toast.

The room is suddenly very quiet as the sisters' footsteps fade away. Dust swirls in the afternoon light.

“You doin' good?”

Toast gestures to her crutches, leaned against the table next to her. She's sitting on what is not so much a chair as it is a small stack of flat crates.

“Not well enough,” she elaborates.

“Gonna be fine soon. Better'n fine. Chrome.”

He walks around the table and half sits on the edge of it, facing her. The table creaks in displeasure.

“Yeah?” she says, smiling, it looks like, despite herself, “I hope so. Getting tired of limping.”

“Course,” he says, “gotta get ya back to trainin' too, or you're gonna go rusty. 'S no good.”

“Mhm,” she agrees, “but I think it'll be a while. Just walking is taking ages.”

Slit frowns, thinks for a moment.

“Could start on weapons,” he suggests. “Throwin' knives, guns, things ya don't have to move much for. Won't make ya less rust at fightin', but it's somethin'.”

“Really?” Toast asks, “thought you said we have to wait?”

He shrugs.

“Would help. Ain't impossible without. Just less ideal.”

Toast smiles and Slit wonders briefly if something in his chest is broken, because it aches painfully. Maybe it shows on his face, because she looks amused.

“Thank you,” she says, and that absolutely does not help, just sounds genuine.

And Slit has to say something, has to tell her, but he can't do it facing her, he thinks, so he walks to the window. Rests his hands on the rough stone edge and looks out the wasteland. 

“I'm-” he begins, but his mind is blank, and forcing the words to do what he wants them to is hard.

Toast doesn't say anything, but he can hear the question in her expression. He tries to gather his thoughts.

“'M sorry if I… If I scare ya. In any way. Don't mean to. Tryin' to-” he pauses, makes a sound of disgust, “tryin' to do like Nux says, tryin' to be less warboylike. A bit. Less me.”

Toast laughs, but it doesn't feel like she's making fun of him. 

“You don't have to not be a warboy, or not be you,” she says, “just try and be a little less murderous and violent.”

He turns and looks at her, confused.

“I can't do both,” he says, and for some reason she finds this funny too.

She gets up, hobbles over to the window, and leans on the edge, looking out. There's just a few centimetres between them, now, and he can almost feel the warmth of her skin through the air. He wants to put his arms around her, but he doesn't. Just turns back to the view, leaning down lower so they're almost eye level.

“You can,” she says, still looking out at the wastes. “I think you can. Be better without changing too much. I want to think you can, anyway. Took me a while to realise. Took me a while to not be slightly nauseous at the thought, but I actually do believe you can be a decent man. With a lot of practise. And guidance. And probably a few explosions of rage. And maybe some of those extra strong herbs Dag grows.”

She looks at him, and laughs at his face, a mixture of deep worry and wounded pride. It's hard to be too insulted when she smiles.

“I'll,” he says, the displeasure probably evident in his voice, “try.”

But he doesn't manage to grimace before she's leaned in close and kissed his cheek.

“Thank you,” she says again.

He edges closer to her till her shoulder is pressed against his. Looks at her as she looks at the horizon. He feels like maybe he's starting to see what happened to Nux, because this is how he feels about Capable, then that explains a lot. Toast looks chrome in the warm light. He wants to kiss her, but he's not sure she wants him to. It's wiser, he thinks, not to try, not to make her angry again.

So it's just as well she kisses him instead. Her small hand presses against his cheek, down his neck. She pauses at the large bump there, but seems to shrug, fitting her hand just under it, pulling him closer. He resists the urge to pull her even closer, but mirrors her gesture, caressing her cheek. Her skin is so so soft and for once that feels like a good thing. She licks at his lips, and he opens his mouth to deepen the kiss, but she grimaces and pulls back.

“Sorry,” she says, “Just the. The clay, it's. Not a nice taste.”

“Oh,” he says.

To be honest he has forgotten it has a taste at all, he's gotten so used to it.

“Hold on,” she says, and fishes an almost clean looking rag and a canteen from various pockets. 

She pours a few drops of precious aqua cola onto the rag, and wipes it over the lower part of his face.

“What are you-”

“Shh,” she says, holding his jaw with her other hand, using the hip of her good leg to balance her against the wall.

The wet rag does feel pleasant on his skin, but he's not overjoyed that she's removing his clay. He hadn't planned on having to reapply it for a few days yet, but he supposes this is worth it, and doesn't complain.

“There,” she says, apparently pleased with her work.

She has washed away the clay on his face, all the way up to the black grease around his eyes. He must look awful, ridiculous, but she doesn't seem to mind.

“You know, I think you'd look pretty good if you stopped covering yourself in that mess. Maybe I got to get you to the pool at some point.”

And she kisses him again as the sun slips slowly towards the horizon in the wastes outside.


	17. Shoot to Kill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or at least mortally wound

“Why is there a car?” Toast asks, lifting her hand to shield her eyes from the sun's glare.

“I thought we were doing weapons, not driving.”

Slit grins.

“Yeah,” he replies unhelpfully, “get in.”

She gets into the car, and hands him the crutches so he can shove them in the back. She's in the passenger seat, and on the floor in front of her is a bag full of various fire arms. It reminds her uncomfortably of being stuck in the Rig, frantically trying to find anything that would shoot to keep the warboys away. Maybe that's the point.

Slit jumps into the drivers seat, a look of glee on his face. 

“Don't get to drive much, huh?”

“Nah. Fuel's scarce. No unauthorized missions or goin' out 'cept to scout. Ya learn to shoot off a movin' car when it gets attacked.”

“That's what we're doing, then?”

Slit nods, and starts up the car. 

“Shootin' at still targets ain't much of a challenge. An' standin' probably ain't good for your leg either. Set up a buncha targets a way out.”

It strikes Toast that Slit is surprisingly thoughtful. She wonders how much of that is time he's spent training children and how much is because it's her. Where would he even learn to be thoughtful in the first place? The Citadel hardly seems like it would encourage such behaviour. Perhaps it's an influence from Nux. He seemed to have some innate goodness, though Toast doesn't understand where that comes from either.

They drive into the desert for a few minutes. Dusty clouds of fine sand billow behind them. Slit is a pretty good driver, as far as Toast can tell, or at least considerably better than her. She reminds herself to keep up her practise. Maybe a mission similar to the last one would go better this time. She wouldn't mind being his driver again, at least if they went some place different.

Slit hasn't quite lost his look of glee at getting to drive. He looks like it's the best thing he's done in years. Maybe it is. Maybe being a lancer means no driving at all, although she supposes all warboys must know how to, if their driver is shot or they scavenge or take functional vehicles. She has never seen anyone training the older pups to drive, but she hasn't spent that much time outside the Citadel, so she might just have missed it. She's not sure entirely how much of the routine of the Citadel of old has survived, and how much is actually new orders. 

“How far is it?” she asks, but the roar of wind and engine must swallow her voice, because Slit doesn't seem to hear her.

She reaches out to touch his arm and he flinches, as if so caught up in driving he had forgotten she was there. Perhaps it's because almost all the Citadel vehicles are made for a single driver, no room for any passengers, only the goods they take back with them.

“Is it far?” she asks, more loudly this time.

He shakes his head, not looking at her. 

“Minute,” he says.

She leans back into the hard, badly positioned seat. Comfort was clearly not a priority in restoring vehicles. Maybe she would have to see Nux about changing that. It's the same car she and Slit took when they went out to Gas Town, and she understands, now, why he wasn't particularly happy about being in the passenger seat. Well, in addition to not being able to do his job. She wonders, thinking back, if he thought of her as more than one of Joe's old wives back then. Probably not. Although she remembers being surprised at how much effort he putting into making sure she was safe, almost enough that she suspected him of caring. She shakes her head at herself. No. 

There's something glinting in the distance, metallic. Shapes that make no sense in the desert. As they come closer she sees the practise targets Slit has set up for her. They're just sandbags tied onto metal poles, but he's painted white figures on them with black grease for eyes. He's painted them as warboys. She wonders if he thinks that will help. She's glad he hasn't painted their foreheads too. Probably that was on purpose. 

“Nice targets,” Toast says with what is perhaps not the expected amount of enthusiasm.

“Thought it was warboys you wanted to be able to fight?”

“Not all warboys. Just the bad ones. Ones who'd attack me or my sisters.”

Slit makes a noise she can't quite understand, and jumps out of the car. He heads over to the closest target, fishing something from a pocket. When he moves on the next one, she can see that he's painted an angry mouth on the face. He is, she decides, strangely charming.

“Better?” he asks, as he gets back in the car a few minutes later, having made all the targets sufficiently malevolent. 

“Better.”

“You're a strange warboy,” she adds.

He looks at her questioningly.

“You seem so… Well. You don't seem like you'd have a problem beating anyone up for looking at you wrong, even if it was Nux, but you do these weird thoughtful things and it… I don't know. It's strange.”

“That a good thing?”

Shrugs. 

“Good for me,” she says. “Maybe less good for people looking at you wrong.”

He grins, and those scars really do make him look more smug, but somehow, it's charming on him now, rather than aggravating. 

“Anyway, thank you, for setting all this up.”

He nods in acknowledgement.

“Thought testin' out shootin' from a car'd be more useful'n shootin' at rocks. And we ain't got any movin' targets since 'parently we're not allowed to use the wretched for target practise any more.”

“Joke,” he adds, hands up in surrender, before she can tell him how horrible he is.

As it is she rolls her eyes at him. It occurs to her, now, that she really is alone with him, truly alone, for the first time. And her leg is shot. She's got all the guns, and she trusts him, but still. She wonders whether she should be worried that it took her this long to think about it. But she looks at him, at the way he looks at her like he's just a tiny bit worried she won't forgive his awful, not even funny jokes, and she's pretty sure the worst thing he'll do is be a distracting teacher. 

Her first couple of tries, she barely hits one of the targets. The bullet lodges deep in the shoulder of target three, its sandy blood drizzling slowly from the decidedly survivable wound. Slit had driven at what he said was “normal speed”. She hadn't asked what that meant, but she suspected it was just a bit slower than he would have chosen had she been a young warboy.

“Can we go a little slower?” she asks, although it pains her to ask him to go easy on her.

But she won't get better if all she does is miss. He nods, though, making no comment, and waits for her to reload before he starts up again.

She gets three of them this time, doing some serious damage to their dusty innards. After she hits the last one she looks briefly at Slit, sees him grin proudly, and, accordingly, misses all the rest. She ducks her head in embarrassment, but Slit puts a hand on her shoulder and assures her she's doing good.

They do a few more rounds, testing out speeds. Slit varies his driving as well, adding to the challenge by suddenly slowing down or speeding up, doing unexpected turns. By the end of it Toast feels like she's maybe got a little better at shooting, and definitely like she's gained some bruises. The interior of the car is decidedly uncomfortable when she's not the one driving. 

“I know ya took it bad when I told ya you coulda been a good warboy, but I meant it. You're good at doin' war. Or, least, some of the fightin' and shooting.”

“Thanks.”

She knows he means well, but the comparison still makes her too uncomfortable to respond with as much enthusiasm as he wants. Sighing, she grabs a water bottle from under the bag of guns, takes a deep pull. The water's gotten far too warm, and it's not pleasant. She holds it out to Slit, then shakes it at him when he makes no move to grab for it. She looks up at him.

“Come on, it's not that warm, I don't want you getting too dehydrated to drive.”

“Too thirsty,” she clarifies when he still doesn't take it.

“You sure?” he asks, and Toast nods impatiently.

She realises, then, that in warboy culture, sharing water might possibly be a Significant Thing. She remembers, of course, how everyone guarded their water in Gas Town. It was the most important resource anyone could have, but during her time in the Citadel she got used to having as much of it as she wanted. It didn't occur to her, not really, that it wasn't like that for the warboys. That maybe to them water was a much rarer and more precious thing.

Slit drinks deep, nearly empties the bottle, but that's fine, she's got another stashed stashed somewhere, she thinks. He looks good. Fits, somehow, in the interior of the car. Which is clearly what he thinks too, given how much he complains about not getting to drive more often. It's hot in the car, though, so sweat has smeared half the clay on his back into the fabric of the seat. The clay on his face, however, is spotless. He's reapplied it after the last time they talked, after she… helped him remove it. A little is smeared over the metal of the staples, she can see the faint finger print smudges. She wonders if he refreshed it before coming to meet her, if he thinks he looks better caked in white.

“What?”

She realises he's looking at her, that he's caught her staring. She doesn't know whether she can detect a trace of amusement or if that's just the scars. 

“Nothing,” she says. “Ready for another try?”

It goes better, now. The sun has shifted, the glare in her eyes gone, and she gets her first head shot.

“Yeah!” Slit says, and pumps his fist in the air. “Take that Morsov!”

Toast doesn't ask.

After a while, when the sun has made it clear that it's heading for the horizon, Toast decides that they've been at it long enough. She's tired and her arm hurts and she feels she's made decent progress. Slit seems to agree.

“Moment, just gotta get down the targets. Can't leave 'em out here.”

He gets out, gets to work tearing the posts down. Most of the sand has been shot out of the bags by now, and Toast feels a little proud of that. She even managed to get one of the sacks through its painted eye. That was luck, though, she feels sure. Because she missed a lot, all through the day.

The car bounces as Slit dumps what is apparently all of the targets onto the back. The metal poles look heavy, and she appreciates again just how absurdly strong he is. Apparently the targets still gave him some trouble, though, because when he gets back in the car he's completely covered in sand. The red dust mixing with the clay almost makes him look unpainted.

“Bag ya failed to kill fell on top of me,” he explains, shrugging and wiping sand from his face. 

It's very fine sand, though, and lumps of it get stuck between his scars. 

“Should have killed it harder,” Toast says, smiling.

Slit nods his agreement, and starts the car up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not as quick as last time but  
> Also, disclaimer, I don't know how to use a gun (someone made me shoot a rifle once when I was like eight and I cried but I don't think that counts) or drive so if anything is wildly distractingly inaccurate, that, and my aversion to research into stuff I'm not interested in, is why.


	18. That's a Whole Lotta Water

“No, you're coming with me.”

Toast grabs his wrist, pulling him with her, leaving one of her crutches in the car and using him for support instead. Slit doesn't resist, although she seems to expect him to. He's not sure why. Mutters something about how he should put the targets away, but he doesn't really care. Someone will notice and fix it, probably.

She keeps leaning on him heavily as they make their way slowly upwards. He wants to offer to carry her; all this walking must be bad for her leg, but he suspects she would take it as an insult. It's part of why she's the shiniest.

Warpups stare in awe at him, and he grins smugly at them behind Toast's back. It's pup behaviour, sure, but he feels entitled to his self satisfaction. After all, Toast the Knowing, Imperator Toast -he thinks they're all imperators now, he's pretty sure, but hasn't actually asked anyone- is taking him to Something Important. 

Some warboys look knowingly at him, winking and sometimes making lewd gestures when Toast can't see, and Slit is torn between hoping they're right and punching them until their own driver wouldn't recognize them. He settles for glaring angrily. Lancers are not, he has to admit, always the nicest warboys. Shit, no warboys are the nicest warboys, but lancers, well. They're more aggressive than drivers or repair boys. Nux had suggested once that it was because they had more to prove given their lacking knowledge of cars and engines. Slit had responded by punching him. They hadn't discussed it since.

“Where we goin'?” 

They're nearing the top, now, of the Citadel, nearing the dome. Which brings up _questions_. Because it's very tempting to Slit to think that Toast is bringing him to her bunk, her strange soft bunk. He wouldn't mind, of course. He would very much like to go there again. Would very much like to do things to her that he couldn't quite keep himself from fantasising about while Toast shot sandbags. But it doesn't seem likely.

“I want to see what you look like.”

This is entirely unhelpful. She knows what he looks like, doesn't she? She was looking at him while they drove back, he noticed. And without that hint of worry he sometimes senses in her that makes him feel bad in a way he can't put into words. She was looking at him, he realises, in that appraising way warboys sometimes look at each other after a good fight. He's suddenly very aware of his breathing.

“Here,” Toast announces, leading him into a dark, humid room. 

It's just outside the dome, another door off that room hung with rows of green. There's a sunken pool of aqua cola that takes up most of the space. It's a lot deeper, he thinks, than the one in the centre of the dome. Larger, too. It's warm in the room, almost uncomfortably so. Toast has left the room with a promise to be right back, and so Slit dares to bend down and poke a finger into the water. It's warm.

“Figured it was time to get all that clay off you, warboy.”

Slit whirls round, annoyed at being caught, but Toast doesn't seem to mind. She's carrying a torch in her free hand, which she sets in a holder on the wall. The door is, much like in her room, just an opening in the wall, and she pulls the cloth that hangs to the side across it. The torchlight flickers as they both stand quiet and motionless for a moment. Slit fidgets with his bracer, running fingertips over the metal. 

“Well?”

She looks at him expectantly. He shrugs awkwardly, unsure what to do.

“Come on, get those cargoes off. I know you like your clay but this bath isn't optional.”

When he makes no immediate move to shed his clothes she mutters some curse he doesn't recognize under her breath, and turns her back to him. She pulls her shirt over her head, and then there's a few moments of clanking as she unbuckles the belts on her trousers and steps out of her boots, leaning her shoulder against the wall for balance. Slit doesn't even have time to stare before she slips into the water.

“Come on.”

It's as deep as he suspected, coming up almost to Toast's ribs. She's looking at him like it's a challenge, and he strips as if it was the fastest way to get to Valhalla. When he drops the cargoes dust fans out in a cloud. Toast is pointedly looking away, he sees. He wonders why. Maybe she thinks he'll be too chrome looking for her eyes and she won't be able to help herself. Yeah. Got to be that.

He lowers himself into the water and it's- he lets out a sound that might have been a moan. Toast huffs in amusement as she turns to face him again. The hot water eases pains he didn't even notice he had. 

“That good, huh?”

He nods, unable, for a moment, to form actual words. 

“Never had a bath before?”

“No. Ain't allowed. Not enough.”

“Explains the smell,” Toast mutters.

Slit is too comfortable to glare. He just stands, swaying almost, in the water. It's turning a cloudy grey, and he feels a pang of guilt for fucking up Toast's aqua cola. But she's the one who brought her here, the one who wanted the clay off him. 

“Maybe we've got to see about setting up some kind of communal pool for you,” she says, quietly, as if to herself.

But Slit doesn't want that. Not only is it, as his mind hastens almost defensively to point out, a disgraceful waste of aqua cola, but it would also mean she wouldn't bring him back here. And he wants this again. This here, with her, not only the water. He frowns, scrubs at his wrist where the bracer has left indents in his skin.

“Thank you.”

He's not used to saying that. Gratitude is too soft a feeling to be expressed openly by warboys, but she keeps thanking him for the tiniest of things, and then gives him _this_. Lets him into their special aqua cola room. He wonders briefly whether Capable takes Nux here often, and if so, why Nux hasn't told him. Reminds himself to ask.

“This is for purely selfish reasons,” she assures him, “I want to see what you look like without all that white.”

“Besides,” she adds, scooping up some water and pouring it over the scars on his stomach, “it's my fault you got covered in half the desert today.”

Slit wants to argue this, but he's not going to give her more reasons not to let him up here again. Just nods and begins to scrub the clay from his arms. This is considerably easier and more comfortable than the usual shared, barely damp rag. He's not looking forward to going back to that after trying this bath thing.

Toast scoops up water again, this time pouring it over her hair. While she's not paying attention to him Slit dares, for the first time, to look at her. She looks so small and soft in the warm light. He wants to- he wants to do a lot of things, but he forces himself not to think of them. Not the time. He squeezes his eyes shut and crouches down till he's completely submerged, and rubs at his face and head until his lungs hurt. 

“You look good.”

Toast looks up at him as he straightens up, and she looks pleased. It's odd, stripping off the paint here. In front of her. Makes him feel more naked than removing his clothes did. Unprotected, somehow. He doesn't like being without the clay for long, doesn't like not feeling like a proper warboy, but right now he doesn't mind that bit. Her gaze doesn't exactly make him uneasy, but rather... rather nervous. Like showing of something he's built to an imperator, knowing that what he's made is chrome but still worrying whether they agree.

“'Course I do,” he replies, but it's just a moment too late to sound as confident as it was intended.

She's still smiling up at him, though. He hair hangs down in her face, even more of a mess than usual. Slit is pretty sure she has never looked more chrome, although her face right before she punched him in the face that one time is pretty close. 

“You look… chrome,” he tells her, and for once he wishes he had more words to describe how she makes him feel, how shiny she truly is.

But she seems to understand what he's trying to say, because she steps closer, motioning for him to lean down. She's so small that he has to bend awkwardly at the waist to reach down to kiss her. He doesn't mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I at some pointed stated Slit to be almost a foot taller than Toast. Correction: He is, in fact, more than a foot taller than her, and I think that's amazing. Good job.  
> This is short but  
> Shortly to be  
> Followed


	19. Soft

They sit on the stairs inside the vault looking out at the stars. Toast sits a step above Slit and they're still barely at eye level. It's empty except for them, she doesn't know where everyone else is. It's peaceful. Not something she ever expected to feel sat this close to a warboy.

Slit has cleaned up good, she thinks. His face actually looks nice without all the clay. All sharp angles and deep set eyes. The one that isn't messed up and bloody is a very appealing shade of blue, and she keeps glancing at it although it's gotten far too dark to see colours properly any more. Even his scars look softer, somehow. Not as accentuated by the clay, not as stark and cold. 

“You look so human,” she mutters, not quite realising she's spoken out loud.

Slit makes a confused noise.

“Without your clay, I mean. Like a person, not a warboy. I like it.”

Slit makes a displeased noise.

“Prefer lookin' like a warboy. Not givin' anyone any ideas bout me bein' soft.”

“Hope you can get past that one day. Hope you can accept that it's not all bad.”

Slit turns to look at her, then, brows furrowed, narrowed mismatched eyes closing in on her. That too feels different without the clay. Less threatening, somehow. All features softened a little, although she's not about to tell him that.

“Bein' human gets ya killed.”

“Not in here. Not any more.”

“No? Then why's it so important nobody hear anythin' 'bout you an' me, then?”

His tone seems almost hurt, but she must be imagining that. Why would he be? Softness is bad, as he keeps saying.

“I… I don't want anyone else to know before I know myself.”

“Huh?”

“I don't know what I feel. I don't know what I want. I don't need anyone having opinions and making it more complicated.”

“Oh.”

He looks a little disappointed.

“Well, you're rust at keepin' secrets.”

Toast bites back her answer. She doesn't feel like arguing right now. Slit just looks frustrated. She hopes the frustration won't turn into anything more aggressive. 

“Why? Does it bother you not telling anyone?”

“No.”

Slit can't look her in the eye when he says it, though, so that seems unlikely. Maybe he's seen the way Nux is with Capable, wanting to show all the other warboys how chrome and amazing and perfect she is, maybe he thinks that's what you do. Or maybe he's worried she feels ashamed of him. Which, to be fair, she does. Or of herself, really, for falling for a warboy, for someone she is supposed to despise. It's not like she wanted this. She has tried so hard to not like him, but there's something about him that just-

She doesn't even know what it is. He's quite good looking, yes, especially without the clay. And he has been pretty decent to her. He even seems to genuinely care about her, almost despite himself. Despite, she corrects herself, all the toxic shit he's been surrounded by his entire life. She doesn't want to let him off completely, to say it's not his fault, because it is. But no one brainwashed by Joe their entire life could turn out decent without some help. Even Nux had needed a nudge in the right direction.

“I'm just worried that this is a bad idea.”

“'M not,” he says, “won't be.”

He looks like he's trying very hard not to look pleading. It's not entirely convincing, but, weirdly, endearing. 

“I know,” she mutters, looking away.

“I'm sorry.”

–

Slit stays in her room that evening. Toast doesn't know whether she wants him to, but she feels a little guilty, so she lets him. He refuses to go anywhere without paint, claims it's indecent. She doesn't even begin to understand what this means. 

“I'll go when it's late enough people are asleep.”

Which, if she's entirely honest, sounds good to her too. They'd gone to her room when they heard voices. To hide, she supposes. It had been too late to sneak him out without anyone noticing, and she didn't really feel like explaining that latter half of her day to her sisters. She's not entirely sure how to explain it to herself. It's not that she regrets it, she's just not entirely sure of the sequence of events that lead to it. Looking down at Slit, who in some misguided attempt at giving her space is sitting on the floor, she really doesn't regret it.

“Can I… look at those?”

It takes her a moment to realise he's talking about the small pile of books next to her bed. He looks up at her like he's afraid he's asked something incredibly rude. She can't help but smile as she nods. He picks them up carefully, like they're some delicate part of an engine he's afraid of breaking. Considering how torn and stained and barely held together they are it's almost comical.

“I wasn't sure they taught you to read,” she admits.

“A bit,” he says, frowning at the title.

“Mostly stuff 'bout engines. Nothin' this… wordy.”

“Come here,” she says, patting the mattress next to her. 

The book he picked is one of the ones about history. One of the ones Miss Giddy had used to teach them what it was like, before. The cover, once glossy and representative of everything new and modern is faded to a monochrome blue, torn nearly off, and has rips in it like someone's stabbed it. _A History of the 20th Century_ , it's called. There's pictures of cars and trains and something Miss Giddy had called computers on it, and she suspects that's why Slit picked it.

He sits down beside her, and she notices, this close, the bruises that cover much of him. They're faded, not fresh, but it still bothers her. She hopes they're from training or just work, but she doubts it. Not with the way warboys stared at them earlier, not with the way Slit looked back when he thought she wouldn't notice.

He settles down very close, there's not room for anything else. But it's surprisingly nice. To feel the heat from him across the inch or two of space between them. He opens the book, flicking through the pages. Focuses on the pictures, perhaps not surprisingly.

“This really what the Before was like?”

He's frowning at a picture of some decadent party in the early parts of the century.

“Not for many people.”

“Looks rust, anyway,” he says, but she can see his gaze linger on the table stacked with fancy foods.

He flips on, looks at fuzzy black and white photographs from the world wars, complicated maps with crisscrossing lines showing movements of troops, dramatically lit photos of weapons.

“You _would_ like this...”

He doesn't respond, too entranced by pictures of war machines. She sighs, and slumps back against the wall. Leans her head against his shoulder without thinking. He tenses for a moment, head half turning as if to look at her, then relaxes and returns his attention to the book. She can hear his breathing now, though, just a little sped up.

She wonders how long this slight awkwardness will last. Capable and Nux were cuddling comfortably within hours of meeting each other. But then, those were special circumstances. And none of them were sure they would survive to see the morning after. Makes one prioritise. Makes one not want to waste time. They're lucky, she thinks, that they've stayed the same since. That they are still as nauseatingly in love even now that things have calmed down.

“This shit can't be right.”

“What did you find?”

She leans forward a little, and sees he's looking at the moon landing.

“People on the fuckin' moon, how rusty do they think my head's gotten?”

“Miss Giddy said it was true.”

“Yeah? How they do that, then?”

Toast shrugs. 

“Don't know. Don't know how they could fly either, but they did, all the time.”

“Buzzardshit.”

“No, it's true! In these huge metal sylinders.”

Slit turns to look at her, clearly skeptical. She leans in and kisses his mangled cheek, because somehow his angry confusion is charming. He continues frowning, but kisses her, quick.

“Still don't believe ya,” he tells her.

“I'll live.”

His eyes do that intense staring thing again, that look which she is never sure how to react to. He puts his arm around her, though, and goes back to the book. She leans into him and okay. Okay this is nice. She never thought a man's arm around her could feel safe or reassuring, but it does right now. Somehow. Although she's been sure he won't hurt her for a long time now, she hasn't stopped being afraid he would, not until very recently.

"I think," she says carefully, "that I trust you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Trust you too."

"Was that ever in question?"

Slit looks insulted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is so so late. Had such a hard time writing this chapter. Or having. I started writing this note three days ago and am as of writing still way from done. This feels like a filler but sometimes ya gotta have a pure introspection chapter. Next one's gonna be... More eventful. Also have already started writing it so that's promising for it coming quicker.  
> Started a Slit/Toast modern au that's been in my head though, if you wanna look at that.  
> Also Nux/Capable is literally the only reference they have for a semi healthy relationship, so. Hence the frequent comparisons.


	20. From Dust till Dawn

The sandstorm takes them all by surprise. It rolls towards them, a swirling violent vortex of dust. They park the vehicles between some small rock formations when they realise they can't get out of the way. It's hardly good cover, but it's all they have. Chain the bikes to the rig. Some of the warboys have to stay outside, there's no room in the cars or the rig, and they attach themselves with hooks to the side. There's no glory in letting fucking dust and air send you to Valhalla, he's made sure they know this.

Slit oversees this, makes sure everyone is ready. He'd hung onto a car through a storm before, as Nux drove through. It had not been fun. Broken his arm trying not to get blown off. Coughed up sand for a week after as he recovered. No, sandstorms are shit.

When he's sure everyone's as safe as they can be he ducks into the car. Toast is in it, so it's in the middle of the convoy, the safest spot. It feels wrong hiding when others are risking more, but he's glad she'll be safe. He'll make sure of it.

“Everyone okay?”

“So far.”

She nods. Looks determined with just a hint of worry at the edges. She fiddles nervously with a small knife, one he's given her. He wonders if she thinks to fight the sandstorm, and his heart beats a little faster, foolish as the idea is. 

They're headed to the Bullet Farm. A diplomatic mission, like the one to Gas Town, but it's less organized. They haven't heard much useful news from there, but what little they know isn't good. Unlike in Gas Town, no leader has emerged. And they've been without supplies from the Citadel for months, now. They've got to be running low. So the convoy is bringing water, some produce. A peace offering. An incentive to trade again. The Citadel is getting low on ammo, although there's been little conflict lately. The Fall drained a lot of their resources.

Toast had volunteered to go. Apparently that had surprised Furiosa. Apparently she really hadn't wanted to go the last time, but clearly something has changed. Slit's glad she's his commanding officer. Most of the boys seem to respect her, and there was only two he'd had to beat up the night before, just to make sure there wouldn't be any trouble. All three of them are covered in fresh white clay now, no bruises visible. And, well, if that fucker's got a bit of a limp and a few less teeth than a day ago, well, that won't hinder the mission much.

It's not long until the sandstorm reaches them. The sky darkens, and within minutes they can hardly see anything out the windows. The wind howls, and dust and pebbles hit the outside of the car hard enough that talking gets difficult. The car itself shakes, and Toasts fists are clenched tight in her lap. Slit remembers that she's only ever been in a storm like this once before, and that was tucked safely in the interior of the war rig, hiding between potatoes and water tanks.

He turns, rearranging himself so his back is to the window. Nudges her till she gets the idea. It takes a minute or two of awkward contortion, but then she's sitting with her back pressed into his chest, their legs a messy tangle in the driver's seat. He puts his arms around her, hoping she'll interpret it as comforting and not restricting. He's not so good at telling what she is comfortable with, but she's pretty good at letting him know if something's wrong. 

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, better.”

“Be over soon,” he promises, although he has known the storms to linger for hours.

She rests her head on his shoulder. Moves around enough that he's sure the clay will get in her hair. The idea makes him oddly happy.

“What do you think we'll find?”

“Dunno. Big hole full of guns. Lotsa warboys runnin' round with no clue what to do or who to obey? 'S what the scout said, yeah?”

“Maybe. But it's been what, three months now? That's a lot of time. Chaos is inevitable, but sooner or later someone will try and take power, won't they? And that scouting mission was weeks ago.”

He shrugs.

“Might be,” he admits, “but the warboys from there are pretty fuckin' mediocre. Might just break down.”

She snorts in amusement.

“Everyone's more mediocre than in the Citadel, of course?”

“Course. _I'm_ in the Citadel.”

She laughs. He can barely hear it, the wind outside is that strong, but he can feel it. 

“Maybe you need to teach them to be more like you, then.”

He frowns, considering her proposal seriously.

“Don't think the Wasteland could handle anythin' that shine.”

“You're probably right. A Citadel full of Slits would be terrifying.”

He makes an insulted noise, but she just smiles, face half turned towards him. And he fucking melts, like some kind of soft garbage. Mediocre. But he holds her close and buries his face in her hair all the same, because whatever she's done to him is clearly not going away. Not that he even wants it to.

–

The storm passes relatively quickly, leaving the convoy buried in sand. Slit gets some of the boys to shovel it all of, get the cars ready. His proximity to Toast has gotten him a lot more authority lately, even if it's mostly unofficial. He doesn't let that stop him from enjoying being able to boss the other warboys around though, especially the ones he doesn't like. Which, to be honest, is a lot of them.

Like Rock (Who calls themselves Rock? That's a mediocre as fuck name. Rusthead.) who once accidentally took some of the special thundersticks Slit had prepared for his and Nux's care on a scouting mission, wasting Slit's hard work on some mediocre single buzzard. What a piece of rust. Or Pax, who has always been suspiciously calm and nice for a warboy. Slit doesn't trust him at all. Being nice is one thing. One rather soft thing, but still. Nux is nice, but he's also manic and violent, like any good warboy should be. Pax is just. Weird.

Slit doesn't dwell on the fact that he's not on friendly terms with most of the surviving warboys. They're warboys, after all. Chrome cogs in a war machine. They aren't meant for friendliness. Get along with your driver, sure, that's important. Gotta be a good team, gotta work good together. Can't fight too much with the guy you share a bunk with, but other than that? They're competition. Nux doesn't feel that way, but sometimes he's soft like that. Slit has a hard time resenting him too much for it, though.

–

The Bullet Farm is a hole in the ground. And actual literal hole in the ground as well as a figurative one. It's a pit in the middle of the desert, surrounded by fences and guard towers. There's the silhouette of cranes beyond the gates as they get closer, but they're not moving. The factories seem to be down as well, the columns of smoke that usually rise from them absent. 

Slit leans against the roof of the car, eyes straining. He's pretty sure he can see tiny shapes moving on top of the walkway circling the pit that is the Bullet farm. They're harder to spot than proper warboys, the yellow paint hard to see against the sand, but there's definitely movement of some kind. He suspects their welcome won't be entirely warm.

There's shacks built up around the pit, outside the gates. They're small and shitty and poorly made and entirely unprotected from any raiders or enemies that might take an interest. Looking at them, though, Slit can't imagine what anyone could get from them. Like the wretched back in the Citadel. As they drive closer faces peer out from windows, nervous. A small child wanders out of one of the shacks but is quickly pulled inside by an arm attached to some unseen adult. The whole scene is unsettling. The dust storm must have passed by here too, because it's piled on the roofs of these shacks, threatening the shaky foundations.

The gate is guarded. Heavily guarded. It's only fitting, really, given where they are. A dozen or so guards painted in the Bullet Farm's dirty yellow stand on the bridge of the gate, weapons pointed at the convoy. The small towers on either side probably hold more. Slit wonders whether the local wretched even have guns in this place, but they seem mostly too timid to be in any danger.

The convoy stops a short distance away from the gate, just before the ramp that leads up to the edge of the pit. Toast gets out of the car, and he gets down, pulling the largest and most threatening gun her has. It's nothing on what the local guards have, but it makes him feel better. He signals the other boys to be armed and ready. Follows Toast as close as he can get without it being impractical.

“We come in peace,” she shouts when they get close enough.

The guards on the gate snigger. Slit can actually hear them, and it takes Toast's hand on his arm not to seriously consider opening fire. He settles for moving so he's shielding her from the line of fire on one side, at least. 

“We got Aqua Cola and produce,” she continues, when nothing further happens. “We're looking to set the trading back up. Is there anyone in charge here?”

There's a shuffling movement in the ranks up there, as someone makes their way to the middle of the bridge.

“I am,” a voice shouts back. 

“I'm the Bullet Queen. Now what the fuck are you Citadel fucks doin' here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cool fun wikipedia pages I read for this chapter: Chimneys, Dust Storms, Bullets. Did I use any of the information? Nope. Not a thing. Also the english language doesn't seem to have a satisfactory word for fabrikkpipe and that's just lazy. Get your shit together, english.   
> This chapter is short but in fairness it's only like six hours since I posted the last one so I don't feel too bad.


	21. Negotiations

Toast leans towards Slit, keeping narrowed eyes at the woman on the gate.

“You ever heard of her?” she whispers.

Slit shakes his head.

“Want me to shoot her?” he asks, and she glares at him.

He shrugs defensively.

The woman, who is currently looking expectantly at Toast, is quite intimidating. She's covered in the dirty yellow paint of the Bullet Farm, with two bullet studded belts forming an X across her torso. Even from this distance Toast can see that she's covered in scars, and skeletally thin. Most of the guards are too, Toast sees, but they had more muscle mass to start off with, they are not yet as emaciated. They badly need produce and water. That's good.

“I speak for the Citadel,” she shouts.

“We're here to set the trade back up.”

“And what's to stop us killin' you an' takin' this for ourselves?”

Slit reacts quick, but Toast, somehow anticipating this, is faster, and grabs his arm as it's halfway to aiming his gun at the Bullet Queen's head.

“Stand the fuck down,” she mutters to him, keeping her eyes on the gate.

The guards are all aiming at Slit, but as Toast gently presses his arm till it hangs limp at his side, the Bullet Queen gives some gesture based order, and they lower their weapons again. It's too far away to see, but Toast gets the feeling she's smirking. 

“You could do that,” Toast shouts, “but you're gonna run out pretty damn soon, and we both know you're in no shape to take the Citadel.”

Tone, she finds, is harder to keep consistent when she's yelling, but the distance is too great for anything else. There's a few moments of quiet as the Queen contemplates. Slit is still half in front of her, placed like some kind of human shield. He moves just enough that he softly bumps into her, either some act of comfort or just random movement, she's not sure.

“We'll talk,” the Queen announces with a dramatic gesture.

“Step into my office.”

Toast walks towards the gate, fending of Slit's question of what an office is. The guards make it very clear that no one but the two of them are getting in, but at least they haven't approached the Citadel boys yet. Slit waves some complicated signals to them that Toast can only guess the meaning of.

“You've got to teach me some of those signs some day,” she says, as they're lead in through a door and into a long stone corridor.

Slit makes a non-committal gesture. They follow a guard through what feels like an unnecessary amount of slowly sinking tunnels. Maybe it's to disorient them, so they can't run away. Maybe it's to kill them and put their heads on spikes. She forces the thoughts from her mind. Can't afford to seem scared. Focuses instead on how she wishes she'd brought her crutches. Her foot is mostly fine walking unassisted now, but these long corridors make it ache sharply.

They're lead, eventually, into a large and surprisingly well lit room. There's actual electrical light here, Toast sees. She wonders how they manage that. A large chair, clearly meant to emulate a throne, takes up one end of the room. It's set on a small platform, just a few inches high. The Bullet Queen is slouched on the throne. This close it's even more apparent how poorly she's doing, although she clearly tries very hard to seem fine. Her torso is littered with old scars, long and thin. Their shapes seem a bit unnatural to come from fighting, but they're nothing like Slit's scarifications. The Queen's black forehead paint is smudged and distorted, and added to the top there are three bullet shapes in a crown formation. 

Slit stiffens beside her, and it's so sudden she's worried. He's staring at something in the corner, and when she follows his gaze she's pretty shocked, too. There's a warboy there, a Citadel warboy, painted white and proper, chained to the side of the throne. He's crouched next to it, his head just an inch from where the Bullet Queen's hand dangles.

The warboy's scarred, in the same way as the Queen, long stripes still red through the clay. One runs diagonally across his face, and it's so fresh it's not even started to scar. There's a collar hanging round his throat, to which the chain is fastened. His hands are bound too, in front of him, but by rope it looks like he could easily escape. He's the only one who seems to be in decent shape, so far. She can see a small lump on his shoulder, but other than that he certainly doesn't look like the Bullet Farm's not received any food for three months.

“D'you like my pet?” the Queen asks, lazily stroking across his skull.

He leans into it, looking pathetically grateful for the attention. 

“He's such a good little pup.”

Slit makes a retching noise.

“Picked him up outta the trail of bodies your war left,” she says, “poor thing was all alone an' hurt. He's doing so much better now.”

Her smile is that of a predator. The chained warboy seems oblivious.

“I- I don't understand. Is he a hostage?”

“No, he's my pet, as I said. Now let's talk terms.”

–

It takes them about an hour to work out an agreement that works for both parts. The Bullet Farm doesn't have as much leverage as the Queen tries hard to make it seem. Toast almost pities her. A quick look at the chained warboy solves that, though. It's far too much like something Joe would do. Perhaps they can overthrow this queen.

“Do you think we could save him?” Toast asks Slit when they're alone again, back by their car.

“No,” he says, too quickly.

He turns to fix something where the thundersticks fit into their holder. She sighs, leans on the car next to him.

“Did you know him?”

“Yeah.”

Slit says the word like just admitting it makes him feel sick, like he wants to punch something, although that last bit is pretty much his baseline. Toast waits, watching the boys unload the rig. 

“Wrecks,” Slit says eventually. “His name's Wrecks. Which shoulda warned us, really. Was a pretty chrome lancer. Part of the war party. Vehicle he was on got lost at some point, we all thought he'd gone to Valhalla.”

Toast smiles carefully.

“You must be glad he's alive, then?”

Slit looks at her in disbelief.

“Course I'm fuckin' not! You saw him in there, that's- That's worse'n even a very painfully entry into Valhalla. Woulda shot him myself if I didn't think you'd mind.”

It shouldn't shock her, really, what he's saying. She should be used to it by now, but it still makes her feel uneasy. The thought that he would rather kill his old friend, rather put him out of his misery than help him. He's come so far in some ways that she sometimes forgets. It's easy when he worries that she's scared, when he respects her and her wishes more than she thought he would. When he looks at her like she's the greatest thing since chrome.

But he's still a warboy. He's still violent and dangerous, it just doesn't affect her any more. But she does feel certain he can be better. That he can learn.

“Well,” she says, “it would have messed up the negotiations.”

“Can't believe he'd let her,” Slit mutters to himself, “could beat her easy, why doesn't he just...”

She puts a hand on his arm, rubbing the raised ridges of the scars there.

“I'm sure he would if he could.”

Slit makes an unhappy sound, but leans into her touch. Leans down and kisses the top of her head. And there it is again. That strange sweet side that only seems to apply to her. That makes her forget all the violence and everything he's done that she doesn't want to ask about, doesn't want to imagine.

She becomes aware, suddenly, of laughter. Turning quickly she sees a group of yellow painted warboys are standing close, seeming very amused and faintly threatening. The Citadel warboys, she sees, are busy loading crates of ammo into the rig, they haven't noticed.

“You goin' all soft in the Citadel? Lettin' breeders boss ya round?” 

“They got you fuckers tamed?”

Slit growls. Actually growls, like an animal. Toast resists the urge to roll her eyes at him.

“Not a breeder,” she clarifies. “I'm an imperator.”

She's not sure if she is, not formally, but she doesn't think anyone in the Citadel will mind. Their warboys are starting to mostly respect her and the others' authority these days. It doesn't much matter, though, because the Bullet Farm boys laugh at her. Not even mocking laughter, they seem to genuinely find the idea hilarious. She can feel Slit starting to move, so she tightens her grip on his arm, _no_.

“You boys got a problem with that?” she challenges.

One of them wipes an actual tear of amusement from his eye. Toast does roll her eyes at that.

“No one ever teach you to respect authority?”

“They did, but you ain't it,” one of them spits back.

He's tall and thin, but looks strong, unlike his ability to phrase insults. More importantly she can see the several guns strapped to him. All of them, in fact, seem to be carrying a couple of guns. She wonders if she can pull one from her pocket without them noticing. Probably not.

It turns out not to be an issue, though, because Slit's pulled his gun at them.

“You mediocre piles of rust back the fuck away from my- from the Imperator.”

She doesn't have time to wonder what he almost said before one of them lunges at Slit. The boy grabs at his gun, but Slit kicks at him. The others come to their friends assistance, then. There's seven or eight of them, and it's not looking great for Slit, strong as he is. He's fighting hard, though. Everything's happening so fast, and Toast desperately looks towards where the Citadel boys are working, but they're all inside the gates. So she gets her own gun, shoots into the air, two, three times.

The boys stop, looking at her in confusion.

“Get off him,” she orders, putting as much authority and malice as she can into her voice.

She lowers her gun to point it at the forehead of the toughest looking of them.

“Or what?” he challenges, and she lowers her gun a little more, shooting him in the arm.

He looks insulted more than shocked or in pain.

“Get. The fuck. Away,” Toasts says, aiming at his forehead again.

The gunshots have called attention to them, and half the rig crew are jogging towards them.

“There a problem, Boss?” one of them asks as he comes up to them.

“I don't think so,” Toast says pointedly, “do you?”

She directs the question at the boy she shot. He looks around, and, seeing that they're now outnumbered, shakes his head. He looks like he'd quite like to murder her, but she can physically feel Slit doing the same to him, although she can't see his face.

“Okay, run back to your queen now,” she says.

And they actually do. Slink back. The Citadel boys stick around to make sure they're alright, which is quite touching. She didn't know they cared that much, but perhaps they're loyalty is stronger when there's possible enemies around. She thanks them, though, hoping positive reinforcement will work. 

When they've gone back to finish loading the rig, Slit hugs her. Pulls her in and squeezes her so tight it almost hurts, so tight it almost gets hard to breathe. Mumbles something into her hair.

“You're the shinest, most chrome person in the Wastes,” he tells her, very earnestly, when he lets go.

She laughs, a little shakily. She's never shot anyone before, and though she knows the boy will be fine, she still feels a little… a little wrong. She's supposed to be better than that. But she selfishly looks up into Slit's eyes, and the adoration there makes her feel a little better. She'll have plenty of time to feel bad later, she reasons, and pulls him down into a kiss. She almost hopes the Bullet Farm boys see it and feel bad. 

“You're pretty chrome, too,” she tells him.

“I know,” he says, and tries to look smug.

He fails, though, looking more like Nux than she's ever seen him. Almost sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I drew the bullet queen and her puppy and if you want to you can look at them here [on my tumblr](http://indiasierrabravo.tumblr.com/post/135005819717/i-feel-like-i-should-have-given-him-a-collar) (Wrecks is named after Urdnot Wrex for no other reason than that I thought it was funny when I was half asleep last night.)
> 
> And look. It makes sense to me that Slit would think Toast was hella chrome for shooting someone for him, rather than the weird icky dude thing of being insulted when women defend them. I hope that makes sense to everyone else too.


	22. Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Softer

She takes him to her bedroom again that night, when they get back from the negotiations. 

“I saw the bunks,” she explains when he gets this too pleased with himself look in his eyes, “it's ridiculous. We have to fix that, but in the meantime...”

She lets the sentence hang in the air, not sure how to finish it, not sure how she wants to. But Slit is frowning at her.

“'S wrong with the bunks?”

“They're just slabs of stone? A single blanket if you're lucky? I saw children sleeping in piles! On the floor!”

“Yeah? 'S what it's always been. Good for warmth.”

“It's atrocious,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

Slit sits down on the bed with a creak, which makes them more or less eye level. 

“This shit's too soft, make me soft too,” he grimaces.

“You think I'm soft?” she asks and panic momentarily floods his eyes.

She manages not to smirk. She genuinely wants to know, and scaring him is pretty fun. But he seems to give the answer thought, not only to avoid making her angry but to figure out what he thinks. She stands expectantly in front of him for a few moments, but her ankle's had a long day, so she sits down next to him.

“No,” he says. “And yes. But not in a bad way. Know you ain't a warboy, not the same, yeah? You're so shine, and a bunch of yer thoughts are real soft, but-”

He pauses, looks down. 

“But I think you want the best. Want the Citadel to be chrome in your way?”

She nods.

“I do. And I want you to understand why but- But I guess that takes time.”

He looks at her and shrugs helplessly. She leans her head on his shoulder, both of them staring into space together.

“Want to,” he murmurs, almost too quiet for her to hear.

“Hmm?”

“Want to understand.”

She leans up to kiss his cheek.

“I know,” she tells him, although she hadn't been sure.

“And you're going to, you're doing so well. The Slit I took to Gas Town would never try.”

He hums in agreement, and puts an arm around her. And it feels almost too good to be true. Because he really has gotten so far. To a point where he seems to be genuinely considerate, at least of her. Where he wants to see her point of view. Maybe this isn't because he thinks he's wrong as much as it is because he likes her, but that's still a vast improvement. And if she can make him see, can make him really believe in what they're doing, how they're improving the Citadel, then, well. Then there's no warboy that can't be convinced.

How he is, how he behaves, towards everyone that's not her, that hasn't changed much. Probably it won't change much, but if the reasons why change, then maybe that's enough. She has seen him be gentle with the smallest pups, even before she really knew him. With the older ones he was harsh, but, she thinks, fair. Good at what he does. Not, maybe, a bad person. Just very adapted to the culture in which he was raised and indoctrinated. 

In the arm that's around her he's carved his death. Simple lines clearly spelling out the way he plans to go to Valhalla. It's the side of him that's taken the most damage, she thinks. Bad bloodied eye, hard lump messing up his ear and those long gashes in his side that are stapled shut and greying, but don't look like they've healed right. And despite the fact that she knows most of this is his own fault, most of these injuries were gotten in the process of defending Joe and his legacy, she feels suddenly bad. Feels awful that he's had to go through so much pain. It's not really comparable to hers, it's not the same at all. But it's still bad. It's still got to have been agony.

She sneaks an arm around his middle and leans into his side. Enjoys the powdery warmth of his skin, still painted white. She can feel his heartbeat, now, can hear his breathing quickening a little. And she finds she feels it's vitally important that more pain doesn't happen to him. That's pretty impossible in this world, but it feels essential. 

“Everythin' okay?”

“Yeah,” she says into his skin, running a hand over the thick decorative scars on his stomach, “I think it might be.”

He makes a satisfied sound, then extricates himself from her arms. She minds, but less so when she sees him pulling off his boots and removing the heaviest tools from his pockets. He lays down on the bed, looks meaningfully at her, and then she's doing the same. She sees there's still a knife sheath strapped to his leg, but she figures maybe sleeping with all the other warboys has made him paranoid. 

She lays down next to him, both still mostly clothed, and Slit drapes a thin blanket over them. Toast lays her head on his shoulder and she is so so nervous. She is scared. Not of him, not any more, but of what this means. What does it say about her that she has brought a warboy into their inner sanctum, into her room and into her bed? Because she swore not to often enough. But his skin is warm against her and she puts her palm over his heart and he kisses her hair and it all feels good and right.

It's not very late, not really, but the desert has tired her out, and she falls asleep quicker than she means to, the steady rhythm of his breathing calming her. So it's not surprising, maybe, that she wakes up earlier than she usually does.

It's still dark, entirely so, and the room has gotten cold, even through her clothes and the blanket. She shivers, and shuffles closer to Slit, lifting his arm up and over her and curling against him, face pressed into his chest. He murmurs sleepily, but doesn't wake. She can't see anything, so she runs her fingers over his scars, familiar now, just for safety. Wonders when he became that.

She asked Capable once, how she managed to trust Nux so fully and immediately, and Capable had shrugged and said that she “just knew”. Toast doesn't just know, just trust easy. It took her a while even to trust her sisters when she was put in the vault, that they weren't somehow out to get her in some way her worries never quite managed to work out, although that didn't stop her being scared. So it's frankly quite impressive how fast Slit went from kind of annoying threat to someone she clings to in the dark.

He moves in his sleep, fingers grasping at something, and then jerks awake, breathing heavily. 

“Bad dream?” she asks, moving back just a little.

He grunts in what might be either agreement or confusion. Takes a moment to calm down, little sounds and shifting next to her signifying movements she can't see. Then the arm slips back around her, pulling her close again.

“'S cold,” Slit complains groggily.

“Thought you'd be used to that?”

She feels him shrug.

“Doesn't make it less cold.”

But his skin is warm against hers, so he can't be suffering all that badly. Unless he too has started getting the night fevers some of the sicker warboys have. But she thinks he's probably just not good with being awake this early.

“What were you dreaming about?” she asks instead.

“Fire and blood,” he says, dramatic as ever, even with a sleepily hoarse voice.

“That good or bad?”

She can never quite tell with him.

“Yeah,” he tells her unhelpfully, resting his chin on the top of her head.

He sighs.

“Dreamt of goin' to Valhalla,” he elaborates. “An' it was glorious. Eternal fires sendin' me there, blown up by the ultimate crash, a thousand cars dyin' with me. But...”

“But what?”

“When I got to Valhalla it was all empty. You weren't there. An' then it didn't feel like Valhalla any more. Felt like Hel.”

And her heart is beating faster and that's not right because Slit still has happy dreams about dying, and that's horrible. But the idea that his Valhalla isn't real without her is strangely charming. So she nudges his head till he turns his face down to her and she kisses him, almost entirely missing his mouth in the dark. And he kisses her back with slightly better coordination and his breath is awful because it's morning, but probably so is hers and she can't find it in herself to mind.

“Then you'd better stay here just in case,” she tells him breathlessly when they break apart.

“I can do that,” he murmurs into her hair.

He runs a hand down her side, pushes at her shirt, but just an inch or so, just letting her gently know. And she hadn't even thought about this as something she wanted, but she does now. She leans up a little to kiss him again, and she can feel it throughout her body, and his when he pulls her even closer. He nudges her till she turns, laying on her back, him half over her, and she can feel him hard against her hip through both their clothes and-

“I-” she begins, but falters.

He stops immediately, moves away a little.

“Sorry,” he says, “didn't think, didn't-”

“No, it's- I'm-”

She sighs. Considers. Reaches out blindly till her hand finds his arm, runs fingers down it until she grabs his hand and squeezes it.

“I want to,” she tells him, “but that- that scares me.”

“Don't wanna scare you.”

“No, you don't, but. But me wanting you scares me.”

“Why?”

“Because- Because why do I?”

He snorts, insulted.

“Don't mean it like that,” she assures him. “It's just hard, with everything. Everything that's happened, what I went through, and I'm not sure I'm ready to, you know. Have a man inside me.”

She's reasonably sure she can actually hear his pout, but he squeezes her hand back.

“Don't wanna hurt or scare ya,” he repeats. “Don't want ya doin' anythin' ya don't wanna.”

She pulls at his hands and he moves closer again, a little tentative. 

“I really appreciate that,” she tells him.

“But,” she adds, “there are other ways.”

She doesn't know, but she suspects Slit is frowning at her.

“Yeah?” he asks, sounding hopeful.

“Yeah,” she says, pulling his hand down.

Then, she frowns, sits up to pull her shirt over her head, wriggling out of her cargoes. Tries to look expectantly at him, but realising he can't see.

“Get naked,” she suggests gently, and the almost instant loud clanking tells her he's probably being pretty enthusiastic about it.

She hears metal fall to the floor, and then more shuffling and the bed moving and then he's cupping her face with his hand and kissing her softly. He's careful not to let his dick touch her, or at least it seems like that. Which is touching. His hand strays down to her breasts, seeming not quite sure what to do with it, other than touching reverently. She supposes it's fair to assume he might not have been with a woman before. Not a privilege afforded to the warboys, perhaps. But his touch feels good either way, and she pulls him even closer, because she needs him to be.

He kisses down her neck, his hands running up and down her sides, and her hands run over his skull, holding him in place until it occurs to her that maybe his head can do some more good somewhere else. She pushes him down a bit, and he presses light, tickling kisses down her stomach and then as she guides him towards where she needs him most he looks up. She doesn't see this as much as she feels his him move, and he asks her whether she's sure. She nods.

For a moment he doesn't do anything, but she can feel his hot breath against her.

“What- what do I do?”

Which, frankly, she should have considered. 

“Know how with warboys, but yer parts're all different.”

Which gives her some mental images she is going to save for later. He runs a finger through the softly curling hair there, and she twitches up a bit. Reaches a hand down and leads his fingers down to her clit.

“There,” she tells him. “That's a sweet spot. That's like- Like the head of your cock, I suppose.”

He moves their hands out of the way and licks at it and Toast isn't sure she has ever felt anything like that.

“Again?” she requests, and he does it again and yes.

Yes this is good. He flicks at her clit with his tongue and carefully slips a finger into her and that's not the same, so it feels amazing. Her hands find his head, to keep him there, keep his tongue where it is. He doesn't seem to mind. Another finger joins the first one, they curl inside her and she doesn't think she can take more of this, so she tells him to never stop. He pauses and she feels him grin, the metal in his cheek cool against her inner thigh. 

“Please?”

It comes out more like a whine than a sensible request but she doesn't care because he starts thrusting his fingers again, just shy of fast and hard enough, and his tongue gets back to work. She knows her nails dig into his head too hard, but she can't manage to stop herself. She can feel a wave building, too fast and too slow both, and then-

She thinks her vision blacks out for a little while, but it's still far too dark to tell. Her ears are ringing, and she can feel her pulse everywhere. Her inner muscles clench around Slit's fingers, and she distantly thinks he probably looks too smug and she makes a note to kiss the smirk off his face when she can move again. 

Slit kisses her down there, then shifts up till he's lying next to her again. She hears wet sounds that she assumes means he's licking his fingers clean, which is a surprisingly pleasing thought. She summons the strength to turn her head to kiss him. Tastes herself on his lips. Strange.

“Thank you,” she tells him, reaching up to stroke his face.

“My pleasure.”

“Ours, I'm pretty sure.”

She curls up to him again, putting her head on his chest, and he wraps his arms around her and pulls the blanket back up over them. For a time, at least, she feels warm and comfortable and like she never wants to move again. 

“You're pretty shine,” Slit tells her.

“Mm. You too.”

He kisses her hair and she's pretty sure she hears him mutter something about definitely being better at this than Nux.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck I'm so sorry it's been so long. I'd blame christmas and video games, but to be honest, that hasn't kept me from writing, I've just been writing on a different project, a collaboration thing, which will be super cool when we get far enough to start posting it. But yeah, so, here is this.  
> This is my first time actually writing a dude/lady sex scene that is not also morally despicable so I hope it's okay.


	23. Morning After

Usually waking up isn't Slit's favourite thing. It means noise and being aware of the people all around you and of how cold you are. This though, this is different. This is good. He is never going to admit it to anyone, but this soft bed is pretty fucking shine. No part of him hurts, which is a rare experience. Also there's opening his eyes to see Toast lightly snoring into his chest. It makes something inside him hurt, but in the best way.

He puts a careful arm around her, trying hard not to disturb her sleep. It's rare to see her face so far from a scowl, and he's going to enjoy it as long as he can. He suspects there will be talks when the day starts proper. Consequences of what they saw and did the day before. A long sigh escapes him.

Whatever's going on at the Bullet Farm is fucked up, that much he knows. He paid only cursory attention to the agreements yesterday, busy with what he thinks of as his real duties. Toast keeps telling him he's not guarding her any more but that's buzzardshit. She's important and she's small and more fragile than she would like. More than he would like too, but they can start training again soon, he thinks. She's got the will, just needs the technique and maybe some more muscle. 

But that place, that place was terrible. Citadel warboys maybe not be full lives, but they're still a long way from the walking corpses the populate that hole in the desert. And Wrecks, fucking Wrecks. Poor fucking shit. He used to be a decent enough lancer, but now? Denied entrance to Valhalla and kept on a fucking chain. That's past mediocre, that's- Slit doesn't know what it is, but it makes him sick to his stomach. He wishes Toast would have approved of him giving him the mercy of a sliced throat.

Warboys are meant to be strong, to be the best, the most powerful. Fierce killers, not anyone's slaves but- But this isn't Toast's truth, this isn't the truth of the New Citadel. And he doesn't know whether that means it's no longer his truth either.

Toast twitches against him, opens her eyes and flinches away from him. She blinks rapidly, face fearful, before focusing and relaxing, flopping back onto the mattress. It gives a whining metallic twang. Slit frowns, but doesn't do anything, doesn't reach out to her. Nux says Capable does this, still, sometimes. That it's because when they're tired they don't remember that everything is better now (and he's waking up next to Toast, so he has given up on pretending Before was better), and they get scared. Don't recognize them. 

Toast sighs, and mumbles an apology. It's not needed. Slit wonders if he can touch her, if she'd be okay with that or get more jumpy. He waits, and after a few moments Toast wiggles closer. He puts a hand on her shoulder, not around her, not trapping, and she groans.

“What?”

“Have to get up.”

“Don't,” he suggests.

She almost smiles.

“Wish I could. I have to report back to Furiosa about the Bullet Farm.”

He makes an unhappy noise, and now she does smile, and lean up to kiss his cheek. He barely feels it, but that's not important. This tiny and chrome imperator is kissing his scars, and that's one of the shinest things that's ever happened to him. She looks at him and seems amused and he wonders if she can see his thoughts. Probably, he decides. She's chrome enough.

Toast groans again, and gets off the bed. Gathers her clothes from where they lay crumpled at the foot of the bed and on the floor and gets dressed. He mourns the sight of her naked, but she looks like she could beat him up when she's ready for the outside world, and that's just as good. She tosses his cargoes at him, and gives him a smile before leaving.

He spends the day training pups. They're getting softer. He can tell from the way they demand water after just two hours of lancing practise, from the way they play and tease each other when they think he's not looking. They're getting mediocre, and it worries him. The Citadel, however new and chrome it is, is going to rust up real fast if the new generations of warboys are busier pretending a bit of scrap metal is a car than learning how to defend their home. 

–

“Why aren't there any wargirls?” Toast asks, “why not more women like Furiosa in your ranks?”

Slit shrugs.

“Immortan thought they were weak. But there are a couple. None that used to be breeders, like her. Some were sent up here when they were little. Too many sprogs at once for the guards to check 'em all, right, so no one noticed much for years. Wretched who wanted more water rations than they had sons. They were clever at hidin' it, and those who knew didn't care much. As tough as the rest of us.”

“Oh. I haven't noticed any.”

“As I said, good at hidin'. Too used to it not to, now.”

He doesn't tell her that some imperators sometimes knew. That they used to make the girls do extra work, and not just maintenance either. They're dead, now, and Toast doesn't need to feel bad. Not unless those girls want to tell her themselves. Maybe he should suggest it. But may the new and improved imperators have enough shit to deal with.

Toast tosses a small green thing at him, and he catches it. It's round and smooth and glints in the sun. He thinks it's called a fruit. These are hard to grow, he knows, the gardens only yielding a small bounty, and very rarely, and so the warboys were never allowed any. He wonders what it tastes like, and whether he's really allowed one, whether they are to wasted on half lives now. 

There's a small bucket next to Toast, filled with different green things. She grabbed it from Dag's shack when they came up here, while she was off talking to some of the pups. Slit isn't sure if Toast is allowed these green things either, but she seems to think she is, and he is in no position to argue with her. And anyway, the thought of her stealing green things and giving it to him is pretty nice.

“Scared?” she asks, grinning, and takes a bite out of her own fruit. 

It's very very green and looks like it's the same thing he has. When she bites into it, though, she grimaces. He hopes she's not in pain.

“You okay? Did it hurt ya?”

“No,” she says, face twitching “no, it's just very, very sour.”

He frowns, and bites into his own. She doesn't tell him off, thankfully. It tastes a little sharp, but not enough to make his face screw up like that. Maybe Toast isn't used to fruit either, although that seems unlikely. The Immortan and his wives were the ones who got the rarest green things. He pats her shoulder, in case she needs comforting from the food, but she rolls her eyes at him, so it can't have been that bad.

“Ya think we could get the wretched to give us more?” 

“More what? They hardly have more than they need of anything.”

“Girls, I mean. To be warboys, wargirls, somethin'. This new thing, 's keepin' the boys soft, and they're not as effective in combat if they ain't willing to go to Valhalla. So we need more, gotta keep the advantage.”

“I'm not sure training twice as many children to kill is the way to make the Citadel better,” she says, and he can tell she's trying hard to do her diplomatic thing.

“But you wanna fight,” he argues.

She sighs, and closes her eyes. She's upset with him, he thinks, but he's not entirely sure why.

“I do. But to be able to defend myself, not to go to war.”

Which is a fair argument. She's Toast, she's chrome and important and it's important to defend her. 

“But I suppose teaching the young girls from the wretched to defend themselves isn't the worst idea you've had. We could maybe offer them extra food and water and defence training in exchange for having them do some of the work up here. I'll mention it to Furiosa and the others, see what they think. But I don't think Furiosa want any more girls to go through what she did.”

What he chooses to focus on is that she's liking his idea. Sort of. Mostly. Of course she does, it's a great idea. He must look proud, because she tells him to wipe the smirk of his face.

“Can't,” he tells her, gesturing to his scars, and she groans.

It is entirely possible that it's not the first time he has made this joke.

“They're coming here,” she tells him after a while.

He squints at the desert, but can't see any approaching vehicles.

“Who?”

“The people we talked to. The Mayor, the guy in charge of Gas Town, and the Bullet Queen. There are to be talks, Furiosa and Angharad say.”

“Oh.”

“Thought you'd like to know so you can avoid them. Pretty sure the Bullet Queen is going to bring that guy, that warboy of hers, try to intimidate. It seemed hard for you.”

“I'm not fuckin' scared,” he says, and it comes out as more of a snarl than he means for it to, and Toast looks startled, inches back.

“Sorry,” he adds, voice calmer.

“But I'm not gonna avoid 'em. If anythin', Wrecks needs to be shown what a real warboy's like again, so he can kill her, free himself.”

Toast looks a little resigned.

“If you're gonna be there,” he adds, and she nods, “I wanna be there too. Make sure none of 'em can hurt ya.”

“I don't think that's going to be necessary,” she says, “but you can watch if you want to. I think Nux is going to be the one who officially represents the warboys' interests. We even managed to find some woman who seems to be a sort of leader among the wre- among the people below, and she is coming as well.”

Slit doesn't comment on that last ridiculous idea, because Toast would probably get angry, but at least she's going to let him guard her. Good. He starts early, by putting an arm around her and pulling her closer. She doesn't seem to mind, because she leans into him happily enough for a moment. 

“I've got to go prepare for it,” she tells him.

He voices his displeasure by kissing her hair and putting a hand on her thigh. She smiles, then, but gently lifts his hand away and gets up. He remains seated, and looks up her, trying his best to do those big sad eyes Nux is so good at, but she just smiles, and strokes a hand briefly over his prickly skull and down his face. 

“Take this,” she says, and gestures to the little fruit filled bucket, “and give it to those poor pups who trained with you. Whatever you say I'm pretty sure they've deserved it.”

He grumbles, but agrees. It's a disconcerting feeling, but he's not entirely sure he even could not do something she wants him to at this point. He owes Nux an apology for saying he was soft to let Capable ruin him. Fucker ain't gonna get it, though. Slit's got too much pride for that. He watches Toast leave mournfully, and only steals one of the pieces of fruit before heading down into the Citadel to find the mediocre pups.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yooo  
> I know this is late, but in fairness I'm now coauthoring another Toast/Slit-centric fic called Colouring in the Negatives which I'm begging you all to read if you haven't, because Valkyrien's part is so good and I love that universe we've been building so much and it is really really great, and most of the second chapter's been written so it's gonna update soon too. 100% better world building than I alone can provide. Very recommended.


	24. Talks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god I'm so sorry it's been like six months there is no excuse

They all cluster by the entrance, where the vehicles are hoisted up and into the main tower of the Citadel. The small convoys from the two cities have been spotted, but they're still a little way off, dark pinpricks against orange dust. Everyone must have heard what is happening, because Slit can see a lot more warboys and warpups than usual, hanging around on the machines, pretending poorly at work. A group of pups are having to be physically restrained by some of the warboys, after leaning too far over the edge, nearly falling. Slit hears talk of fencing.

They're all there, waiting. Furiosa stands close to the edge, surrounded by the old women from the desert. Ace is by her side, too, always her attentive second in command, although Slit is pretty sure the Returned wife has officially taken over that role. She and her sisters, Toast included, stand near them. Slit keeps back, stays out of their way. Stays unnoticed. Until, that is, a hand is slapped on his shoulder and Nux joins him, all bright grin and big eyes.

“Exciting, yeah?”

Slit grunts unenthusiastically.

“Know you've seen these people before, but all of us ain't been lucky enough to go on the most important runs lately.”

Slit scoffs.

“Only cause you an' Capable can't stand bein' apart more'n five fuckin' minutes.”

Nux nods, as if this great, and grins wide.

“Just ain't lookin' forward to seein' that fuckin' half feral fucker in charge of the Bullet Farm. 'S somethin' wrong with her. What she did to Wrecks, you shoulda seen it. Will see it, I guess. Fuckin' disgusting.”

Nux nods gravely, but doesn't manage to suppress his excitement. Slit can't blame him, though, not really. He's not left the Citadel since the Fall, has been stuck inside all this time, and although this can hardly compare to driving, he can understand that it's something new, something finally happening. 

Slit keeps glancing over at Toast, hoping, maybe, that he'll catch her looking at him too, but she is deep in discussion. She's turned half away from him, but he can tell she's frowning, worried. Angry, even. Maybe he's managed to convince her that this meeting is a bad idea, that it's not going to lead to some new and improved trade agreement, that the talks will fall through and there will be fighting.

“Hey, look,” Nux says, nudging Slit, pointing a grease stained finger at an approaching group.

The masked warboys surround the Doof Warrior, protecting him, carrying his gear, and Slit can barely see a hint of the red of his suit between them, the spiky bits of his mask sticking up. One of the masked ones is leading him, murmuring something Slit can't hear. He'd never admit it to anyone, but the masked ones intimidate him, weird him out with the black holes of their eyes, the sown up canvas mouth. He heard Sparks say they never take the masks off, or at least not around any outsiders. Doof's mask is something else, though. At least it looks like a face. And is one, if the rumours are true. 

Slit has never had much to do with Doof and his crew. You needed to be smart about things for that, know the complex machines, and Slit was never very good at constructing anything that wasn't meant to blow up, in someone's face if all went well. He remembers some of the lucky pups being selected for the job, a few thousand days ago, given masks and lead away, and Slit hasn't seen their faces since.

“I think they're nearly here,” Nux says, voice lowered to a whisper.

He fidgets, which he always does, fingers never busy enough, needing something to tinker with, even if it's some mechanism only in his head. Slit accidentally on purpose broke two of Nux's fingers while they fought once, while they were just pups. It had not been a good time.

The wail of a guitar interrupts his thoughts, and he sees the Doof crew has finished their setup, the Doof Warrior himself on a small platform, surrounded by speakers decorated with the skulls of fallen warboys. In the Old Days he would have had his axe shooting flames, but these days the New Leaders talk about Fire Safety and Not Setting the Entire Citadel on Fire Just Because It Looks Chrome. Which Toast has explained but which Slit still is not convinced isn't worth it.

The man-powered gears start to spin, and the platform, now populated, begins to rise, the workers pedalling to the sound of the drums, the screams of the Doof's guitar serenading their guests as they arrive.

-

Slit doesn't try to hide his displeasure when the leaders of Gas Town and the Bullet Farm and their flocks of mediocre guards rise into view and the music winds down. He's not the only warboy present to react this way, but a glance around the hall reveals them to be in the minority. Nux, wary of Slit's reaction, has got a hand hovering by Slit's arm, ready to hold him back. Slit isn't sure whether to be insulted. Toast, he thinks, would be grateful to Nux, so he supposes he should be too.

The self-proclaimed Bullet Queen steps off the platform first, Wrecks on a leash after her. She looks around, takes in the interior of the Citadel, and approaches Furiosa and Angharad. Slit thinks he sees Toast scowl at her, and then catch herself, force her face back into a diplomatic and neutral expression, and his heart does that funny skipping thing again. Not the time.

Wrecks follows meekly on the leash, head bowed. Slit would like to think that it's out of shame, but he suspects it's something else, some of whatever the Bullet Queen has done to him. Slit's fingers curl into fists at his side, and he feels Nux's hand on his arm, the touch soft, just a reminder not to do anything stupid. He nods, irritated.

The Bullet Queen is talking to Furiosa, who looks at her with thinly veiled distaste, but the Bullet Queen doesn't seem to notice, or doesn't care. Or maybe it's what she wanted, the reason she has come as she has. A few guards stand behind her, trying to look scary and failing miserably. They're too thin and weak, the dark circles under their eyes visible through the yellow paint. Their guns point firmly at the ground. 

Around the cavernous room pups look on the newcomers curiously, whispering to each other, chattering and theorizing about what's going on. They've been told something vague, just that they're talking to the leaders of the other settlement, but Slit thinks maybe it's Wrecks who has their attention. It's been a long time for the pups, months, since they saw him last, but some of the older ones recognize him, and watch with wide, frightened eyes. 

The Mayor, as he calls himself, from Gas Town, steps down next, followed by the second in command Slit dimly remembers Toast talking to, and a group of guards. Some of them are polecats, and Slit has to try very hard not to go over to protect Toast or punch their masked faces in. She had explicitly told him not to, last night, having thought that this might be the case. But then the polecats, along with the flamers, were the chromest that Gas Town had to offer. Which isn't saying much, Slit feels. 

The Mayor is, as promised, dressed in Old World fancy clothes, impractical and absurd here among the machines. Like the People Eater he doesn't wear any war paint, and it makes him look weak. He hasn't quite learnt how to stand like a leader yet, and eyes warboys around him aggressively, as if to challenge them, rather than take their fear and respect for granted. Slit feels sure he'll do badly in the negotiations. Furiosa and Angharad are ferocious, and the Bullet Queen is nothing if not intense.

-

Slit shadows Toast as Furiosa leads the way to what Toast said was going to be The Conference Room. It's a word from an old word burger, she explained, but Slit just thinks it sounds dumb. He tried suggesting they call it the War Room, but Toast just looked at him in that way she does, part amusement and part disappointment. He doesn't like that look.

“You good?” he asks her as they wait outside for everyone to file in through the narrow door to the War Room.

She looks determined, like she's ready for battle, and he supposes in her way she is.

“Yeah. You don't need to be here, you know. I'll be fine.”

“Gotta be there,” he says, and he looks down at her, and he thinks she understands.

“Okay,” she says with just a hint of a smile.

She turns, and walks in, and he follows.

-

The actual talks are dry, and though Slit knows they are discussing the future of the Citadel, and the other towns, and that he should be interested, he can't manage to follow the meandering, too detailed conversation. There's too many people talking and compromises and promises and discussions of the exact amounts to be traded, and all he can think is that he would rather be on the road, throwing lances at everyone who disagrees. Killing the opposition usually works for him, but he can't fix things that way, and it's frustrating.

He stands by the wall, a meter or so behind Toast's chair, glaring at the strangers. He doesn't trust them not to do what he wants to. His fingers itch, and he wants to get out a knife, at least, something to subtly voice the threats that his glare can't quite convey. The other guards look uneasy too, talking calm doesn't come naturally to any of them. 

The Mayor of Gas Town is fumbling, Slit can tell, although he tunes out the talking. The man isn't used to leadership, and hides his incompetence badly with fancy clothes and a loud voice. The Citadel, Slit feels sure, will have all the guzzoline they can use. But so will the Bullet Farm.

Slit watches Toast, too frustrated to bother following what's going on. Focuses on the important things instead. People, he corrects himself. The important people. Important person.

She doesn't talk much. After all, she and Dag and Cheedo and Capable aren't the official representatives of The Citadel, not really. But she can't contain her frustration sometimes. He thinks maybe she's better at being diplomatic when everyone around her isn't. Even when she's silent he can tell, from how she angles her shoulders, the way her sleeve scrunches up when her fingers dig into the fabric. 

Across the table Slit occasionally notices the Bullet Queen glancing at Toast. Gloating, it seems. Slit isn't sure why, but he makes sure to glare extra hard. She doesn't do him the courtesy of noticing his anger, though, seeming to deliberately ignore him when she occasionally looks around the room. Wrecks is somewhere on that side of the table too, but down on the floor. Slit's grateful he can't see. 

He's not sure what she hopes to accomplish, bringing the poor wretch here. Maybe she just wants to make the warboys angry, throw them off while she somehow tricks them into promising her aqua cola. And maybe it works, because when they have come to some sort of temporary trade deal, and agreed to meet again in a half hundred days, everyone looks tired and angry. 

Toast is one of the first to leave the room, walking as quick as she can with only the faint hint of a limp. He follows her, remains quiet and casts occasional glances behind them, making sure no spy or killer from the other towns are following. She will talk when she's ready, he reasons.

Slit follows her into the Dome, and into the small dark room where the deep pool is. She undresses quickly, mechanically, and it's still a little thrill to Slit that she does it so naturally in his presence, that it doesn't worry her. She slips into the water, submerges herself completely for a second or two, and leans against the edge, eyes closed, choppy hair plastered to her face. He remains clothed, standing, unsure what she wants him to do.

“You coming in?” she asks after a minute or two, without looking at him.

He doesn't feel dirty, hasn't even been doing proper work today, just standing and looking scary, and he only applied his warpaint two days ago, but Toast and her sisters believe in a lot of bathing, and Toast says it's good for her leg, and honestly he doesn't mind and excuse to be naked with her, it usually leads to good things. So he discards his boots and cargoes and most of his knives and gets in, splashing her in the process, and she splashes him back and smirks when he makes an upset sound and so maybe everything didn't go as bad as she seemed to feel.

“We own the entire Wasteland yet?” he asks, and she leans into his side and traces the staples embedded in his skin and sighs deeply.

“Tragically not.”

“Rust.”

“Yeah.”

He decides this is a good moment to kiss her head, and does so, and she makes a soft almost happy noise.

“Really don't listen much to these things, huh?”

“Busy doing my job.”

“Being scary?”

“Makin' sure you're safe.”

She is tiny and not looking up at him, but he feels like she's rolling her eyes.

“An' you talk too much. All of you. Not enough deciding things.”

“World would be simpler if everyone agreed with us.”

“Don't need to,” he argues, frowning, “just gotta be stronger.”

“We're better than that,” she reminds him, looking up at him in the dark.

He shrugs, uneasy.

“Ain't good at being better.”

“You're learning.”

"Want to."

"You're doing fine."

They're quiet for a moment, in which Slit feels like something inside his chest might explode, and Toast tries to run her fingers through her hair until it doesn't tangle. 

"I understand, though," she tells him, "coming out of the talks all I could think about was that we need to start training again, because I need to punch someone, even if it's you, even if it's not to do harm."

"You're better than me," he reminds her.

"Only because I'd lose any fight I could start."

This seems reasonable to Slit.

"Start again proper tomorrow?"

She looks at him for a moment, about to say something, but relents.

"Yeah," she agrees.

"It has to be in the afternoon, though, we have to have a meeting about today's meeting in the morning."

Slit stares at her.

"I know. Your way sounds simpler."

"I'll make sure there's nothin' can hurt you this time," he promises.

"It wasn't your fault, Slit," she says, and he almost believes her.

He shrugs.

"My responsibility. An' no fun if we have to give up quick cause I made it too hard."

"Either way," she says, tiny hand on his arm, her touch somehow electric, "I'm looking forward to it."

"Can set up yellow targets," he offers. 

"I-" she begins, but falters.

Instead she grabs his hand and lifts it to her face and kisses it. Slit looks forward to tomorrow too.


	25. Throwing knives and punches and sometimes accidental compliments

“She can't really do that much to us yet,” Dag reasons, but Toast remains unconvinced.

They are sitting in the Vault, the last two not to have left after the morning's meeting. The sun is high in the sky now, 

“She knows something,” Toast argues, “and she clearly can't be trusted, and I just don't get how Angharad and Furiosa refuse to see it.”

“They know, but they have to try, have to trust them a little, you know that.”

Dag's voice is soothing and it's so so tempting to just let it go, but

“But you didn't see her on her own, down in the Bullet Farm. That place is terrible. She's terrible.”

“And the little man in the fancy clothes isn't?”

“Of course he is, but he's too dumb to be a threat just yet. But that woman, the way she had us go so deep. She could have killed us and the crew would never have known, couldn't have done anything.”

“But you had your trusty lizard boy with you, yeah?”

Dag's half smiling and Toast knows she's trying to make her feel better, but right now she resents it.

“You're not taking me seriously.”

“I do. But we have to see how it goes, yeah? Till next time?”

She puts her hand on Toast's shoulder, calming.

“You should go see lizard boy, get some punching done, do ya good.”

Toast nods, face blank, but remains sitting there for a while after Dag leaves. She feels like she's being paranoid, but she also feels right. She wonders if she has let Slit get to her. He was against all this, told her so repeatedly. Told her they would use the opportunity to get the layout of the Citadel, or to plant spies, gas town guys painted like proper warboys. She had told him that just because that was what he would do didn't mean the other towns were as awful. But maybe he had been right.

She can't shake the feeling that the Bullet Queen is in the middle of a plot that's succeeding. The way she looked at Toast, so self satisfied, like all the pieces were falling into place, like the Citadel people were all naively doing exactly what she wanted them to. But Toast just can't figure out what the evil plot actually is.

-

When they start training that afternoon, Toast kicks Slit's ass, but to her disappointment only literally. Also it makes her foot hurt again.

Slit has prepared a small room for it. There's a small pile of weapons in one corner, and just outside the doorway there's various rocks and small tools. Clearly Slit is taking his promise not to let her get hurt seriously. 

“You ready?”

She nods, not in the mood to think up some more clever answer. Slit looks at her like he wants to ask whether something is wrong, but he doesn't. She appreciates that about him.

They start light, easy sparring, warming up. Toast isn't sure exactly how long it's been since last time. Weeks, at least. She gets tired fast, even though Slit doesn't go easy on her, or at least not more so than he usually has. But when she tells him, only half an hour in, that she needs a little break, he doesn't mock her. Just sits down beside her and hands her his water ration.

“I think you might be right,” she tells him when she's gotten her breathing back under control.

“Course I am,” he says, adding, after a moment, “about what?”

She looks at his smug, only half joking grin, and wonders again at the choices she makes.

“About the meeting. About the Bullet Farm. About working together.”

“Yeah? What changed your mind?”

Slit looks something like concerned. She's getting better at reading his expressions. 

“The Bullet Queen. The way she kept looking at me, looking at everything. Like she already owned it, only we didn't realise yet.”

Slit nods.

“She's bad,” he agrees.

“Won't let her hurt you. Won't let her hurt th' Citadel.”

Toast's heart does something stupid. She tries to ignore the feeling.

“That's good, but I'm not sure you can fix everything on your own.”

Slit looks insulted and outraged, and somehow it's endearing rather than annoying. Which maybe she should be used to be now. She has no frame of reference for how these things are supposed to go. Really, when she thinks about it, she's not sure she knows about any even half way functioning relationship other than Nux and Capable. Whose standards do not quite apply. Toast and Slit hardly fell in instant soulmate love. She's not entirely sure she can imagine either of them doing that with anyone. Well, maybe Slit and that car he almost died in, he did seem to love that. But otherwise? Slowly softening antagonism seems like the likely road for both of them, if they don't work out.

Slit's face has mellowed into a thoughtful frown, and he looks at her questioningly.

“So what do we do?”

Toast looks at him blankly.

“'Bout them. Bullet Queen. Bullet Farm. Wrecks. That shit.”

“Is there anything we _can_ do?”

“Imm- Furiosa ain't gonna do nothin', right, or can't, not officially. So we gotta find out what the rustheads're up to. Find out what they know.”

“How? Go in undercover in the Bullet Farm as new recruits? We aren't exactly the most forgettable looking people.”

Slit's face falls, as if that had been his exact plan. 

“Could send other warboys,” he suggests, but with less enthusiasm, “young ones, new, some she's not seen.”

“What about Wretched? We could make them say they're not being treated nicely enough, and they want to volunteer for farming bullets? Give them some supplies, make them say they stole it?”

“Not sure she'd buy it. Or they need 'em.”

It's quiet for a moment, as they both try to think of a better solution, but neither of them manages to, and eventually Toast suggests they start up again.

They start with weapons towards the end of the work out. Knives, to be precise. Just trying simple moves with still sheathed knives and daggers. Toast tried to argue for unsheathed ones, but Slit, probably wisely, even she has to admit that, put his foot down. 

By the end of the training session they're both dripping with sweat, but Slit still complains that honestly, is another bath really necessary, he just reapplied his paint this morning. Toast very nearly suggest he and Nux keep a vat of paint up in the Vault, but catches herself, not sure if she's ready for the implications of such an arrangement or even the suggestion of it. 

-

It's late at night, and Toast rests her head on Slit's shoulder. It's become their norm, now, him sleeping in her bed most nights. Sometimes he chooses not to. Mostly, she notices, when she doesn't actually tell him to come there. Which is surprisingly respectful. She thinks maybe he thinks of her as more of an authority in the Citadel than she actually is. It's not ideal, but maybe that's part of how he sees the world, how he's been trained to see it. And if the result is slightly careful respect, then perhaps it's better than the alternative.

She still feels guilty, almost, when he goes to sleep in his own bunk, but he's told her not to be when she's expressed that he doesn't need to, because they still haven't been able to do much about the state of the warboys' sleeping quarters. He says that he's used to it, and he'll go too soft and mediocre if he keeps sleeping on this bed. But he doesn't seem to mind being there most days. 

The room is dark, there bare hint of a glow from some lamp or torch in the main chamber shining through tiny holes in the fabric that hangs in place of a door. Toast lets her fingers run over the carvings covering Slit's stomach, resting over the pieces of metal fused to the skin.

“Slit?”

He grunts sleepily.

“Sorry. Did I wake you?”

“Nah,” he lies, voice raspy with sleep. 

“Why?”

“I was just wondering about these-”

“Muscles? They're pretty shine,” he interrupts with an audible grin.

She tries to keep from smiling, but finds she can't. Fucking warboy idiot.

“Your staples,” she clarifies. “I haven't seen any other warboys walk around with stapled shut wounds or scars. Why do you have them?”

“Better scars,” Slit tells her unhelpfully. 

“Huh?”

“See, mediocre lot that they are, th' others listened to the Organic Mechanic when he told 'em to clean their cuts, keep 'em shut, all that. But that leaves rust scars. Hardly visible. Not chrome at all. So when my wounds started healin' I'd cut 'em up again, right. Keep 'em open so they'd scar better, chromer, but stapled shut so I could still get shit done without my insides fallin' out. Eventually they healed shut.”

“You-” Toast begins, but can't quite continue.

She stares at the vague shape of him in the dark, not quite believing.

“You mean, the scars- Your face- You cut your face open again when it healed?!”

“Yeah,” Slit says, like it's no big thing, like that's just what you do, like that isn't incredibly worrying and horrifying.

“Wh- How- Didn't it hurt?”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, almost fondly, “hurt almost as bad as getting 'em in the first place. Only did one side, though. Other had to many little bits. Might've healed not working right.”

“Why would you do that to yourself?”

“Didn't do it to myself, got the scars in battle, all fair. Just made sure they healed chrome.”

Toast doesn't have any words, so she moves up the bed a little, till her head is level with his. Touches his cheek carefully, and looks deep into where his eyes probably are.

“Who let you make your own decisions?”

Slit snorts.

“'S what Nux said th' first time too. Got used to it.”

Toast sighs.

“Can you promise you won't do it to yourself again?”

Slit pulls some sort of face, but she can't tell what.

“What if it's a real shine lookin' wound?”

Toast pauses, deliberates.

“How about you try not to get badly hurt at all?”

Slit takes a breath, as if to speak, but she corrects herself,

“Or you try to hurt them before they get a chance to hurt you?”

“Can live with that,” Slit says.

“Good.”

“Look pretty chrome as it is,” he adds.

“The chromest looking warboy of them all,” she agrees, only part mocking.

Part of her has decided it's a very good face, scars and staples and all. Definitely her favourite warboy face. She moves in to kiss the face, by some miracle of sightless manoeuvring managing to hit his mouth. 

He turns onto his side to face her, and shuffles down on the bed, enough, she thinks, that he has to bend his legs at a weird angle, and rests his head against her neck and chest. He moves to put an arm over her waist, but pauses, makes a questioning noise. She nods, short short bristly hair under her chin, and he pulls her closer. She softly strokes his prickly skull, and feels an odd urge to take care of this huge dangerous idiot with absolutely no sense of self preservation. Or at least prevent him from hurting himself on purpose just to look scary. She wonders if Capable has these problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little short, but I'm pretty sure I won't have much time to write in the coming days, so I thought I'd post it. Also, you know that thing they said in the video about the make up? How he reopens his wounds? And how people were like whaaaaat he carved himself up? Instant canon? Well, this is what I thought they meant. Also seriously wounding yourself makes you a very inefficient soldier for a good long while, and I feel like probably the scars would be a lot more symmetrical and artsy if he made them in the first place. And for real you don't put yourself in the organic's lab on purpose like that, that's not a good time for anyone.  
> Also it's one am and i've had a bunch of wine so I'm sorry for the typos I didn't catch.


	26. This is an Empty Country, And I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Road trip # 2 part 1 or something maybe roadtrip #3 i haven't read through my own fic since 2015

A few days later they go out driving again, just the two of them. For practice, Toast claims, and then adds that maybe they can scavenge something “or whatever it is you warboys do.” It sounds like an excuse to Slit, but he doesn't mind. Getting to go out driving this often, and just him and Toast? Well, that's pretty fucking shine. 

 

They load up the car and drive, enough guzzoline and aqua cola and thundersticks to see them safe and hydrated for a day or two. Slit isn't sure what the plan is, but spending a day or two on the road, that's almost as good as the eternal highways. Maybe there will be some buzzards, even, or rock riders who have lost their way, and he can impress Toast with some expert thunderslinging, kill some wasteland waste of space.

 

They go west, driving on roads that are barely there, sand dunes taking over the tracks. Toast drives slow, mostly, still not so sure of herself. He thinks she should be. Her driving has improved a lot since that first time they went out. Or maybe driving free just takes the pressure of it. She offered him the other seat inside the car, but it's cramped in there, and hot, and he can't feel the wind in there and when he can't drive it doesn't feel like freedom in the way that it should. Not even when he's next to her.

 

After a while they come to a slightly less open area, cliffs rising up from beneath the sand, some of them appearing to be the remnants of old structures from Before. Rusted metal spears sticking out of sandy concrete. Sharp things in the sand, and-

 

“Hey!”

 

He bangs on the roof till Toast slows down, braking inexpertly so they come to a halt in a cloud of sand. She slides the sunroof open, looking up at him with a frown. 

 

“Follow me,” he tells her, ignoring the question he only half hears, jogging across the sand.

 

They backtrack about a hundred meters till they get to the place he glimpsed it. He slows to a walk, motions for Toast to be quiet, and stays very still for a moment until he sees the glint of reflected sunlight and a flash of movement.

 

“Look,” he whispers, pointing at the thing slowly and carefully, trying not to startle.

 

“I don't see- Oh. _What is that thing?_ ”

 

Slit frowns at the fear in Toast's voice. Surely awe would be more appropriate?

 

About ten meters from them, in the shadow of a wall turned cliff, a lizard is watching them. It's huge, longer than Toast is tall with it's long tail. It looks at them with what might be suspicion, long sharp claws fussing in the sand as if to make it clear to them that if it wanted to it could do a lot of damage.

 

“Isn't it chrome?”

 

He turns to look at Toast, who is staring wide eyed at the lizard, backing slowly away.

 

“That thing looks like something that eats humans,” Toast says, voice shaky.

 

“Nah, we're to big for it. Ain't chrome enough to beat me.”

 

Toast looks like she isn't so sure about that, so they back away a little more. The lizard keeps looking at them, but not quite like they're prey. Maybe more like a worthy enemy. But none of them are in the mood to fight right now. It's too warm for that.

 

He reluctantly follows Toast towards the car, glancing back a few times. The lizard meets his eye every time, and he wonders if maybe it understands. 

 

“Do you want to drive for a bit?” Toast asks when they get to the car, her tone casual like like that's a normal thing to ask, and maybe, if you're a treasure, it is, so he doesn't comment, he just nods and tries to look like a serious warboy who is not currently shrieking with violent joy inside his head. 

 

She does that little half smirk of hers, though, so maybe she knows him well enough to see by now. He gets in the driver's seat, and she sits next to him, and though it feels wrong not to have anyone ready to aggressively defend should they be attacked he reasons they will probably be safe. This region is supposed to be empty.

 

The purr of the engine as she starts is almost as sweet as those moans Toast sometimes makes late at night in that room which is now almost as much theirs as it is hers. The engine coughs sand, and they speed off, weaving between the relics of the bygone world made landscape. It feels giood, it feels amazing to be behind the wheel, and he understands why Nux could never give it up, not even when he was almost dying, because there's nothing quite like it.

 

Toast seems to be enjoying the break from driving, leaning back in her seat and watching him through half closed eyes when he glances at her. It strikes him that she doesn't properly appreciate cars, but then she doesn't properly appreciate a lot of things he loves, like killing buzzards or beating up mediocre warboys. And that is okay, he thinks, because she's amazing in other ways, and she might even know better than him when it comes to some things. She seems to think so, at least, and he thinks she has spent more time Seriously Considering Things than he has.

 

After an hour or so they approach a vast structure rising from the sand. Gigantic pillars support a road soaring through the sky only to abruptly end in jagged points of metal and cement. Slit looks over at Toast, who only shrugs in reply, and so he turns the car so they can drive onto the skyroad. 

 

They take it slow, in case there's holes or traps, and also because Toast is very firmly looking at her hands in her lap and seems a bit shaky. Slit parks the car halfway up, and they bring some water and walk the rest of the way.

 

There as husks of cars, skeletal and rusted, like warnings to those who choose to drive onto the ramp. Some long, almost like war rigs, but without any of the weapons or defenses. Maybe people were weaker back in the before times. Clearly too weak to prevent the world from falling. Didn't even have space to store thundersticks. Fucking mediocre design choices.

 

“Do you think they ever appreciated it?”

 

“Huh?”

 

Toast gestures broadly at the emptiness around them.

 

“The world. Their technology and resources, everything they had?”

 

Slit shrugs.

 

“Nah. If they had they wouldn't let it be taken from them.”

 

Toast makes a noise of agreement. She's standing a little back from the edge, wind this high whipping her short hair around her head, the edges of her shawl flying. For once there's no tension in the way she holds herself, and he wonders if maybe they're on this trip because she needed a break from the Citadel. He wonders whether he is here because he is part of that or because going alone would be too scary. He wonders if that is even at all important to him anymore.

 

Slit walks right up to the edge and sits down, letting his legs dangle over the edge between two metal bones sticking crookedly out. He thinks going out by leaping from this place, holding thundersticks and fire, coming down on an enemy below, would be a chrome way to go. But then Toast sits down beside him and puts her small hand on top of his and going out in a blaze of glory almost seems like it would be a waste.

 

“So we have to,” she says.

 

“What?”

“Appreciate it?”

 

“What, the sand?”

 

“The everything. The Citadel. Our Water supply. What Green we have. Each other.”

 

“I appreciate you,” Slit tries, and Toast leans into him with a laugh, so that must have been the right thing to say. 

 

When it becomes clear the won't make it back to the Citadel before it gets dark, Slit drives the car a bit further up on the skyroad, parking so it's in the shade of one of the old long cars, so everyone looking up will still see nothing but empty wrecks. They don't light a fire, mostly because they have brought nothing to make one with, other than the thundersticks, and that would probably not end well, even Slit agrees with that. They eat some green they brought with them, which doesn't really sate Slit's hunger as much as dull it a bit, but that's fine, he's used to worse. And they don't have much else to do for warmth other than each other and a thin blanket full of holes in the back of the car and whatever warmth can be gained from activities in there, and frankly Slit feels this is one of the better nights of his life even before they fall asleep.

 

In the last moments before his eyes slide shut he looks out the window at the brightness of the stars, and though he is on the brink of some profound thought he lets himself be entirely transfixed by a sleeping Toast making a noise. He figures that's more important right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently when I said the coming days I meant two fucking months. Jesus. I'm trying to establish myself as a freelance illustrator and let me tell you kids that is not a wise career choice if you want, say, an income. But seriously, sorry, I'll try to be better. Also wikipedia assures me Australian deserts are terrifying places with two meter long lizards and I really want to go there and say hello to them. Also aspects of this chapter may or may not be inspired by me finally getting around to playing the Mad Max game.


	27. Road Trip #3 part 2 or something i lost track

The night is cold out in the desert. The car doesn't provide enough shelter, and icy winds sneak in through what Toast suspects are bullet holes. She presses herself as close as she can to Slit, but it's not enough. A little before dawn, she gives up on sleep, and, extricating herself from Slit's arms, walks out to the edge.

 

Up above the stars are so bright, even as she can see a sliver of light pinkish blue appear along the horizon, and they look just the same as they do from inside the Vault, or even back in Gas Town. But they feel closer, somehow, out here. Reassuringly so.

 

She pulls her shawl tighter around her, wishing she'd brought the blanket, but Slit needs it, however much he is used to the atrocious sleeping conditions in the warboy barracks. They have more blankets now, Toast made sure of that, but by scarcity as much as design there aren't many soft things in the Citadel, and scavenging is slow work. She read about plants you can make fabric out of, but you need so many and they can't prioritize those over food, even if they had the right seeds.

 

The car creaks, and she hears a loud yawn and the sound of Slit moving, saying something too quietly for her to make out.

 

“Mornin',” Slit says, and yawns again, sitting down next to her on the edge.

 

He has brought the blanket, and drapes it around the both of them, and puts an arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer. She sighs against his chest.

 

“Somethin' wrong?”

 

“No. Yes. I- I don't know. I'm just worried, you know. None of us are prepared for this?”

 

Slit makes a confused noise, so she elaborates;

 

“None of us are used to thinking about the long term, you know? None of us are ready for peace. You warboys too focused on going out in a blaze of glory, and the rest of us just trying to survive. The others and me, well, getting out was our goal. Going to the Green Place, you know, but then that wasn't real, and now we have to make the Citadel into the Green Place, and none of us ever planned this far ahead. And thinking about the future, thinking about things in the more distant future than next week? It's scary.”

 

“Not sure ya got to worry 'bout that.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Still ain't convinced we got this peace shit you keep talkin' about.”

 

Toast rolls her eyes, but can't quite keep a half smile off her face.

 

“Maybe not quite yet, but this is closer than anyone has been in a long time.”

 

Slit shrugs, dislodging the blanket, and Toast shivers. Slit huffs in impatience, and lifts her up and she sees the ground so far below-

 

 _She is ripped from the War Rig, the pole cat's fingers digging into her skin and they are so so high up and every thing is on fire, everything is blowing up and she is looking into that awful masked grin, hearing that death rattle breath again_ -

 

But Slit has pulled her into his lap and his arms are around her and he rests his head on her shoulder and she makes an effort to calm her breathing. Slit doesn't seem to have noticed. Good. She doesn't feel like talking about it. Doesn't feel like seeing his still now lingering admiration for the monster than imprisoned and enslaved her.

 

“So what's our plan, boss?” Slit asks, “Back to the Citadel?”

 

She makes a noncommittal noise, and looks to the east. The three towering structures that make up their home are just about visible as dark flecks against the rising sun. It's hard to tell in this light, but she thinks she can see dark shapes that might be the remnants of abandoned buildings somewhere in between  
. Places that might have something useful.

 

“Roughly,” she says. “We see anything interesting, we check it out. Might find something useful.”

 

“Shine,” Slit says, and she feels the cold steel of the staples against her cheek when he grins.

 

She's pretty sure he is enjoying their trip. He definitely seemed to be the evening before, although they have now concluded there is a reason why cars used to have back seats.

 

They drive down the ramp carefully, trying to navigate between the wrecks, a task which was somehow easier the other way around. Slit has graciously given up the driver's seat again, although she managed to convince him to stay inside the car, at least until the sun has warmed the air a little. He seems fidgety, trying to move in too cramped a space.

 

The desert is almost beautiful in this light. Not quite as dead and dried looking yet as it will be in as little as an hour. The sun is a vast orange ball of fire in the sky, and what structures remain out here cast long, ominous shadows in which creatures lurk. Toast almost hopes it's the giant lizards. She remembers tales of Buzzards lurking in the dark desert nights from her time before the Citadel.

 

They drive back east, the sun in their eyes, and so they almost miss the ruins. It's a burnt out husk of a building, but through the windows they can see clutter, something that might mean the place hasn't been entirely ransacked. Toast drives around the place in a wide circle, but there aren't any vehicles that they can see, and no movement, so it seems safe enough.

 

“Got your gun?” Slit asks, as she quietly closes the car door behind her.

 

She nods. Slit grabs a thunderstick off the back of the car, and she frowns at him.

 

“Been too long since I blew someone up,” he explains, and were he anyone else his grin would be terrifying.

 

“No one's getting blown up,” Toast says, voice firm.

 

“Don't know what we'll find in there,” Slit argues.

 

She sighs, but doesn't press it.

 

They make their way over to the ruin slowly. Toast hasn't got her gun out, but she is gripping the knife Slit gave her almost too hard. Slit goes in before her, thunderstick raised, and so when nothing explodes in the first few seconds she follows.

The first thing she sees other than Slit’s back, on which her eyes do not linger in the slightest, when she walks into the ruin is a can of guzzoline. It’s even marked as such with poorly spelled scratched words. It’s the only thing that’s not covered in at least a little sand. She looks at Slit, who nods, and they keep their weapons raised as they slowly work their way through the room.

 

It’s a small room, in a building so ravaged by time and weather and repeated raidings that the original purpose is hard to guess. The roof is long gone, and the windows are nailed shut with some material she can’t quite identify. Although the room gives of the feeling of clutter, there isn’t much there. Stacked lumps of concrete covered by sand, piles of rusted cans and the remains of what looks like a fire. Apart from the slightly muted whine of the wind and their soft footsteps it’s quiet, so when Toast steps down on something that creaks loudly she can’t help but make an undignified squeaky sound of surprise. 

 

“What is it?” Slit asks, his voice deliberately quiet. 

 

She frowns, and kicks at the sand until she can see something resembling at hatch. Slit opens his mouth, but she cuts him of.

 

“No.”

 

He looks a little disappointed, but nods. 

 

“Hold on,” he says, handing her the thunderstick and picking up one of the blocks of concrete, placing it over the hatch.

 

He keeps it up till there’s a little pyramid of them, while she watches, paying perhaps slightly more attention to his arms than is necessary. 

 

“Think that’ll stop anyone?”

 

“Nah. Might annoy ‘em. Worth it if it does.”

 

And she can’t argue with that.

 

“Think we’re done here?”

 

“Yeah, let’s get goin’.”

 

Slit picks up the can of guzzoline and shakes it. It makes a sloshing sound, so he brings it with him. Toast follows him out the door. Or she tries to, anyway, but she bumps into his back.

 

“Move it,” she says, pushing past him.

 

And then she sees why he’s stopped. Two people are standing in front of the car, and a third is rummaging through their things. They’re covered head to toe in rags, and are wearing dark goggles.

 

“Ah,” says Slit, “fuck.”

 

One of the figures shouts something in a language she doesn’t understand, and draws a knife so large it might as well be a sword. The two others grab thundersticks from the car. She clicks the safety off and aims her gun at the closest one, willing her hand to shake less. 

 

“Put down the weapons,” Toast shouts with as much authority as she can muster, “and we’ll consider letting you live.”

 

The buzzards look at each other, and make some choked noises that might be laughter. They shout something aggressive, and two of them run towards Slit, while the third throws a thunderstick in Toast’s direction. She dives to the side, but it’s not quite enough, and her arm feels red and hot so so wrong, and she lands hard on the sand. 

 

A shadow falls over her, and she hears the sound of another small explosion, followed by a scream, and she looks up at the buzzard standing over her, knife in hand, about to slash, and she panics, and then there is a hole in the buzzard’s chest and her good hand hurts too, and her shoulder hurts. The buzzard collapses slowly at her feet, making choked, weak sounds. She can hear the noises of fighting still, but they only barely penetrate the ringing in her ears, and she can’t take her eyes of the person in front of her, no the body. The body that she made dead, so even the goggles seem dully lifeless now. The gun isn't in her hand anymore, but that doesn't matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the first half of this chapter exactly one month ago today, and didn't open a word processer until this evening I am so sorry everyone. It is still short, but I am writing the next chapter as I post, or at least in five minutes, so do not worry.


	28. Another Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so. I know I said I was literally writing the next chapter right then when I posted the last chapter. And I know that it's now 10 months later but listen. I have an art degree not a math one. And also I suck at writing with any sort of regularity when I get out of the habit. So. Oops.

Toast goes all quiet. Slit doesn't notice right away, too busy rearranging the face of the last of the buzzards with a knife, but he hears the shot and sees out of the corner of his bad eye that the crumpled shape whose blood is soaking into the sand is not Toast. A knee in the Buzzard's stomach, a block, keeping their hands out of the way, a knife just below their throat. Should stop them good. He shoves the gasping, leaking figure off him.

The dead or dying Buzzard lies half on top of Toast, and she has made no move, looks frozen, so he nudges it off her with his boot while he wipes the blood from his knife. Kneeling beside her he makes a move as if to put his hand on her shoulder, but then thinks better of it. Leans in so he's definitely in her field of view, so it's obvious it's him and not another enemy, and gently pries the gun from her fingers.

«It's fine,» he tells her, «they're dead now, we sent 'em to Hel.»

His instinct is to congratulate her on the kill, maybe her first one, but that can come later. She doesn't look like she's in the mood for it, or for anything. 

«You good?» he asks, but she just continues to stare at the dead body.

He sits down next to her, debating whether she would approve of his checking the corpses for anything valuable. It's clearly the right thing to do, but it feels like something Toast and the wives might not like. Something to do with taste, she told him once, although that makes no sense, he's not about to eat those rusted carcasses.

“I've never... I'm not-” Toast begins, still staring straight ahead.

“'S okay. Better late than never,” he tells her reassuringly, which earns him a glare disgusted enough that he senses that wasn't what she needed to hear.

“Joking,” he tries, and grins, but she doesn't appreciate it.

He supposes that a first kill is more intense and upsetting for her than it was for him. That was nearly four thousand days ago, and he remembers getting black out drunk on something that was almost certainly fairly poisonous. Maybe that could help Toast?

“Can we bury them?” 

“What?”

Toast shrugs uncomfortably.

“I don't like leaving them out here.”

Slit has many arguments against that, but settles for the practical.

“Nothin' to dig with.”

“There has to be something we can do. It just feels wrong.”

Slit thinks for a moment.

“Could throw 'em down that hatch in the ruin?”  
Toast considers it.

“What if the rest of them are down there?”

“Then they'll know not to try anything.”

“I suppose.”

“Should check if they've got anythin' useful on 'em first,” Slit says, and he's ready to defend his position, but Toast just nods after a moment.

“Can you do it?”

“Course.”

He takes his time, goes through all belts and pockets thoroughly, trying to give Toast some time to calm down. The rustheads don't have much. A large knife, the blade nearly as long as his forearm, which he decides to keep. It's too big for Toast. That would just be impractical. And it's really shine. She probably won't mind much. They've got a couple of small tools as well, which joins his own in his pockets, and one of them has a canteen of something, but it smells too toxic for him to want to taste test. 

The buzzards must be doing pretty badly, their malnourished bodies far lighter than he expected. Only one of them is still twitching a little, but once inside Slit drops them strategically so their skull makes a cracking noise against a block of concrete. The twitching stops.

“Do you want me to...?” Toast asks, and he shakes his head. 

Not boss work. Nothing Toast has to do if she doesn't want to. Garbage disposal. Beneath her. Also beneath him, quite literally, as he shoves the bodies down the hatch he has uncovered again. There is more noise than he thinks there should be, maybe some sign that there are more of them down there. He weighs down the hatch again, but clearly they have more exits.

“We should drive,” he tells Toast when he emerges, “might be more of 'em.”

She looks worried. Which is a sound reaction, because the ones they killed used up almost all his thundersticks, there's only one left, which doesn't leave them with much of a defense if there's another vehicle. 

“You good to drive?”

He does put a hand on her shoulder now, and she leans into the touch, though her expression remains troubled.

“Probably.”

“Should go straight back,” Slit adds, “Extra guzzoline went to Valhalla.”

He gestures to the can, now on its side, guzzoline slowly trickling into a pool of rapidly drying blood. Toast shudders, then nods, not tempted by further scavenging.

She gets into the car and doesn't protest when he climbs onto the back. This is better. He'll sit inside the car when she asks him to, wants to even, if it'll make her feels safer or less scared, but it makes him feel bad. Less safe. No view, no room to throw anything. And it feels boring compared to hanging onto the back. Toast and he have had talks about this. Many talks. About death wishes and how they are not ideal, but honestly how does anyone feel alive without that?

Slit can admit that there are some positives to the new and relaxing life in the Citadel, but he hasn't felt good, felt useful for a long time, and this fight is the closest he's gotten since, well, since last time he fought someone from the outside. And fighting for something, for someone, for Toast? That just makes it better. 

Maybe they can do this all the time? Just drive around and scavenge and scout? Find some unlucky enemies to fight, bring useful things back to the Citadel, spend their nights sharing the too small space inside the car. He wants to suggest it to Toast, but she'll say no. Say she has Important Things to Attend To in the Running of the Citadel. Or the New Green Place. She'd say it like that. More fancy. Better. But he can understand that. That's where she feels useful, where she knows what to do. And that's more important.

-

Nothing much happens on the way back. Slit spots a vehicle, but it's all rusted up and half buried in the sand, and probably someone else has grabbed everything there is from it already.

The sun is high in the sky when they reach the Citadel, and despite the wind it's getting hot on top of the car. Their activites in the car the prvious night had gotten him sweaty, so his paint is streaked and patchy, and while he rather enjoys the fact of Toast's hand prints on his shoulder blades he can feel the sun starting to burn.

Toast stops the car a few minutes before they reach the shadows of the towers, and slides open the sunroof. He leans over, looking down at her. There's still flecks of blood on her face, but nothing much on her pale shirt. Probably some on her pants but that'll blend in. Aren't any warboy pants that haven't been soaked in blood and motor oil a few times. And if he's honest she looks pretty fucking chrome with blood on her face. 

“Anythin' wrong?”

She frowns, looks away from him for a moment.

“Please don't tell anyone what happened.”

“I won't.”

She reaches up to put her hand on his where it rests on the edge of the sunroof, which, given the layout of the car and her short stature is harder than it sounds like, and her fingers are small and warm on his.

“Thank you.”

He hopes she knows he will do anything for her. Even not brag about how shine she is, how she killed that buzzard to everyone. Even if it's going to be hard. Even if he bets it would make it easier for other, dumber warboys to respect her. But then again, if they ever try anything again he's pretty sure she could murder them if she wanted to. Shit, he's proud of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember why i don't write so much, though, because it's taken me like 5 hours to write 3 pages and it's 3 am and i feel like death.


End file.
